3 ms·

Weird, why say all that about how it's better than Python/PHP/etc but then not say why they chose it over Java?

• Cless 13y ago
  They probably didn't even consider it. At least, I hope not.
• lmm 13y ago
  I suspect most of their target audience has a dim view of Java. Also, scala's official website has the advantages over Java. (If you're asking what Scala's advantages over Java are: less verbose to read (general lack of syntactic noise, case classes, UAP), covariance/contravariance for generics, code that's much more explicit about mutability (thanks to val/var), pattern matching, more flexible syntax (particularly for/yield as used with e.g. futures), more powerful/flexible type system (e.g. the typeclass pattern))
  • abalone 13y ago
    But one of the Scala drawbacks they cite is "arcane syntax". Another one is all the "advanced features" than can "weave a tangled web of code undecipherable to even its authors". That's very much against the usual alleged benefits of Scala vs. Java that you've listed. That's why I was very interested in the article, a "real world" take on Scala that really felt doctrine-free.. but found it odd that they didn't mention anything about Java. Java would seem at first blush to solve all of the concerns they listed: compile time, arcane syntax, counterproductive advanced features, primitive IDE support, training needs. While at the same time preserving most of the benefits: type safety, concurrency with Play/Akka, JVM ecosystem. So it was just a little weird to not mention the elephant in the room.