6 ms·

Couldn't you just use Scala as a better Java in that case? Or do you just generally like wasting lots of vertical space on braces & monstrously verbose and spar

Couldn't you just use Scala as a better Java in that case? Or do you just generally like wasting lots of vertical space on braces & monstrously verbose and sparsely distributed code chock full of boilerplate? Also, this isn't about 'technology': both languages run on the JVM and are capable of utilizing it equally. Rather, this is about information density of source code; i.e., the signal:noise ratio. And, if you hire experienced programmers then no learning will be necessary and they can do what they want to do 'with technology' much more quickly with more powerful tools in their hands.

RyanZAG 12y ago
You're basing your business case on Java having some vertical space wasted on braces instead of availability of programmers and ease of inter-op with existing libraries? No words.
- yohanatan 12y ago
  Scala can consume any Java library with ease. The programmers I am interested in hiring can program in any language but choose to use the most powerful ones because they are vastly more productive in such than the hordes of 'freely available' mediocrity out there.
danieldk 12y ago
Couldn't you just use Scala as a better Java in that case? Or do you just generally like wasting lots of vertical space on braces & monstrously verbose and sparsely distributed code chock full of boilerplate? You must not have used a modern IDE. IDEs such as IntelliJ can fold a lot of boilerplate [1]. Besides that, modern Java IDEs offer so much functionality for refactoring, code generation, etc., that it's often hard to be more productive in other languages (I have used C++, Python and Haskell for years, but I am more productive in Java after using it for work the last 1.5 years). Scala simply doesn't have the same level of support in IDEs as Java does. [1] http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/IntelliJIDEA/Folding http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/IntelliJIDEA/Folding
- frowaway001 12y ago
  When you are looking for bugs, you still have to read all the code. Whether it was auto-generated or folded by the IDE doesn't give any benefit here.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    You don't, really. Bugfixing by whole-program code inspection is incredibly inefficient and quickly because impractical with large codebases. I've found its far better to hunt down bugs using a combination of debuggers, stacktraces, divide-and-conquer, log statements, assertions, and unit tests. I've gotten bugfix rates as high as 5 bugs/day in a fairly complex library (an HTML5 parser in C) using these techniques.
    - frowaway001 12y ago
      Let's just say that I'm happily using a language where I don't really have to search for bugs in the first place ...
    - yohanatan 12y ago
      I think you're missing the fact that you can use all of those same techniques in languages without all the noise. You can also use a plain old editor with such languages (which can be handy if debugging/writing code on a headless server). And, some languages make writing most of that sort of bug nigh impossible to begin with.
- yohanatan 12y ago
  No, I've used plenty of modern IDEs. In fact I use IntelliJ for writing Scala and most of the features you list are implemented for it too. But, as others pointed out, even if your IDE can generate ungodly amounts of code for you, you will eventually have to read and maintain that monstrosity (i.e., it's not truly 'hidden').
  - vsync 12y ago
    Too true. Lombok <URL: http://projectlombok.org/ http://projectlombok.org/ > is a much nicer approach.
pron 12y ago
Scala's reduction of code size is way overrated, IMO. We're not talking Clojure level succinctness, and you'll be very lucky to get a 30-50% reduction (as compared to, say, Clojure's 5x-10x). In addition, that reduction is -- as you state yourself -- mostly of boilerplate code, which is "cheap" and doesn't tend to have lots of bugs. OTOH, it comes at a cost of very high language complexity, interop, and maintainability. So you pay hard currency for reduction of boilerplate (a mere annoyance). I would certainly consider Kotlin, though. Kotlin reduces the boilerplate but doesn't add much complexity, and doesn't hurt interop in the least. So you pay cheap for the (modest) benefits. This seems like a much better deal for me.
- frowaway001 12y ago
  Wow, and pron is spreading FUD again. Getting a bit desperate that absolutely no one cares about Kotlin?
  - pron 12y ago
    It is because I belong to that tiny group of developers who do care about programming languages that I even mention it. But I care a lot more about software in general, and if you look at the industry at large, absolutely no one (for all intents and purposes) cares about any language other than Java, C, C++, JavaScript and C# (plus some Matlab and maybe R, I guess). So I do have some strong opinions, but I put them in perspective. Until IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and a couple of large defense contractors -- all the true big players in software -- put their weight behind one or two "new" languages, all arguments over PL merits are kind of moot. Frankly, I don't blame the big guys for not switching languages just yet. None of the challenger languages have shown such incredible advantages -- in correctness, performance or time to market -- to justify such a costly switch (certainly no world-changing benefits as C and Java offered). In fact, some technical leads in prominent SV companies have told me that their main reason for picking a non-mainstream language wasn't technical: it was to appease their novelty seeking developers. I think there are two languages that might make a real difference -- Clojure and Haskell -- and they are, unfortunately, still far from conclusively proving their case. If Rust makes it to the embedded space, it could prove a real contender, too. In general, most new languages overpromise and underdeliver.
nostrademons 12y ago
Thought about it. I've heard a lot about Scala's learning curve, but I don't think it'd be a huge problem in my case since I already know Haskell. I am a little worried about finding Scala programmers, but there's a decent-sized community around the language. And it can use Java libraries fine, and you can write native Scala code for Apache Spark. The deciding factor against it, for me, is that Java/anything interop on the JVM is quite easy, but Scala/anything interop is hard. That makes it relatively easy to create a mixed-language Java/Jython system or Java/Clojure system, or even Java/Jython/Clojure, but very hard to do a Scala/Jython system. And even with its advanced features, I doubt that Scala beats Python for quick & dirty prototyping. I've got a bunch of past experience in multi-language scripting + compiled core systems, and I know the benefits of doing a system at scale like that. The value proposition of Scala (and to some extent Go and Haskell) is that you get one language that is both fast and concise, but in my experience you want to separate that out into scripting and core languages, because the styles of programming themselves are very different.
- yohanatan 12y ago
  Yea, I second what froaway said. 'Scripting' in Scala is quite easy and works like you would hope it would. Integration w/ the shell is quite nice and it's as concise as Python, Ruby et al and yet also typesafe. Win-win. Also, I wouldn't worry too much about finding Scala programmers-- in my opinion, what you want to find rather is good programmers. And, good programmers can pick up Scala (or any other language) in short order.
- frowaway001 12y ago
  I think Scala especially excels at prototyping. I use it from quick and dirty scripts and ad-hoc data-processing (the stuff you would usually use Perl/bash/...) over exploratory programming, database work (SQL) and architecture sketches (GUI tools) to full-blown (web) applications (JavaEE, Python, Ruby, ...) and browser scripting (usually JavaScript). I miss none of the "standard" technologies.
nostrademons 12y ago
Thought about it. I've heard a lot about Scala's learning curve, but I don't think it'd be a huge problem in my case since I already know Haskell. I am a little worried about finding Scala programmers, but there's a decent-sized community around the language. And it can use Java libraries fine, and you can write native Scala code for Apache Spark. The deciding factor against it, for me, is that Java/anything interop on the JVM is quite easy, but Scala/anything interop is hard. That makes it relatively easy to create a mixed-language Java/Jython system or Java/Clojure system, or even Java/Jython/Clojure, but very hard to do a Scala/Jython system. And even with its advanced features, I doubt that Scala beats Python for quick & dirty prototyping. I've got a bunch of past experience in multi-language scripting + compiled core systems, and I know the benefits of doing a system at scale like that. The value proposition of Scala (and to some extent Go and Haskell) is that you get one language that is both fast and concise, but in my experience you want to separate that out into scripting and core languages, because the styles of programming themselves are very different.

RyanZAG 12y ago

You're basing your business case on Java having some vertical space wasted on braces instead of availability of programmers and ease of inter-op with existing libraries? No words.

yohanatan 12y ago
Scala can consume any Java library with ease. The programmers I am interested in hiring can program in any language but choose to use the most powerful ones because they are vastly more productive in such than the hordes of 'freely available' mediocrity out there.

danieldk 12y ago

Couldn't you just use Scala as a better Java in that case? Or do you just generally like wasting lots of vertical space on braces & monstrously verbose and sparsely distributed code chock full of boilerplate? You must not have used a modern IDE. IDEs such as IntelliJ can fold a lot of boilerplate [1]. Besides that, modern Java IDEs offer so much functionality for refactoring, code generation, etc., that it's often hard to be more productive in other languages (I have used C++, Python and Haskell for years, but I am more productive in Java after using it for work the last 1.5 years). Scala simply doesn't have the same level of support in IDEs as Java does. [1] http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/IntelliJIDEA/Folding http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/IntelliJIDEA/Folding

frowaway001 12y ago
When you are looking for bugs, you still have to read all the code. Whether it was auto-generated or folded by the IDE doesn't give any benefit here.
- nostrademons 12y ago
  You don't, really. Bugfixing by whole-program code inspection is incredibly inefficient and quickly because impractical with large codebases. I've found its far better to hunt down bugs using a combination of debuggers, stacktraces, divide-and-conquer, log statements, assertions, and unit tests. I've gotten bugfix rates as high as 5 bugs/day in a fairly complex library (an HTML5 parser in C) using these techniques.
  - frowaway001 12y ago
    Let's just say that I'm happily using a language where I don't really have to search for bugs in the first place ...
  - yohanatan 12y ago
    I think you're missing the fact that you can use all of those same techniques in languages without all the noise. You can also use a plain old editor with such languages (which can be handy if debugging/writing code on a headless server). And, some languages make writing most of that sort of bug nigh impossible to begin with.
yohanatan 12y ago
No, I've used plenty of modern IDEs. In fact I use IntelliJ for writing Scala and most of the features you list are implemented for it too. But, as others pointed out, even if your IDE can generate ungodly amounts of code for you, you will eventually have to read and maintain that monstrosity (i.e., it's not truly 'hidden').
- vsync 12y ago
  Too true. Lombok <URL: http://projectlombok.org/ http://projectlombok.org/ > is a much nicer approach.

pron 12y ago

Scala's reduction of code size is way overrated, IMO. We're not talking Clojure level succinctness, and you'll be very lucky to get a 30-50% reduction (as compared to, say, Clojure's 5x-10x). In addition, that reduction is -- as you state yourself -- mostly of boilerplate code, which is "cheap" and doesn't tend to have lots of bugs. OTOH, it comes at a cost of very high language complexity, interop, and maintainability. So you pay hard currency for reduction of boilerplate (a mere annoyance). I would certainly consider Kotlin, though. Kotlin reduces the boilerplate but doesn't add much complexity, and doesn't hurt interop in the least. So you pay cheap for the (modest) benefits. This seems like a much better deal for me.

frowaway001 12y ago
Wow, and pron is spreading FUD again. Getting a bit desperate that absolutely no one cares about Kotlin?
- pron 12y ago
  It is because I belong to that tiny group of developers who do care about programming languages that I even mention it. But I care a lot more about software in general, and if you look at the industry at large, absolutely no one (for all intents and purposes) cares about any language other than Java, C, C++, JavaScript and C# (plus some Matlab and maybe R, I guess). So I do have some strong opinions, but I put them in perspective. Until IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and a couple of large defense contractors -- all the true big players in software -- put their weight behind one or two "new" languages, all arguments over PL merits are kind of moot. Frankly, I don't blame the big guys for not switching languages just yet. None of the challenger languages have shown such incredible advantages -- in correctness, performance or time to market -- to justify such a costly switch (certainly no world-changing benefits as C and Java offered). In fact, some technical leads in prominent SV companies have told me that their main reason for picking a non-mainstream language wasn't technical: it was to appease their novelty seeking developers. I think there are two languages that might make a real difference -- Clojure and Haskell -- and they are, unfortunately, still far from conclusively proving their case. If Rust makes it to the embedded space, it could prove a real contender, too. In general, most new languages overpromise and underdeliver.

nostrademons 12y ago

Thought about it. I've heard a lot about Scala's learning curve, but I don't think it'd be a huge problem in my case since I already know Haskell. I am a little worried about finding Scala programmers, but there's a decent-sized community around the language. And it can use Java libraries fine, and you can write native Scala code for Apache Spark. The deciding factor against it, for me, is that Java/anything interop on the JVM is quite easy, but Scala/anything interop is hard. That makes it relatively easy to create a mixed-language Java/Jython system or Java/Clojure system, or even Java/Jython/Clojure, but very hard to do a Scala/Jython system. And even with its advanced features, I doubt that Scala beats Python for quick & dirty prototyping. I've got a bunch of past experience in multi-language scripting + compiled core systems, and I know the benefits of doing a system at scale like that. The value proposition of Scala (and to some extent Go and Haskell) is that you get one language that is both fast and concise, but in my experience you want to separate that out into scripting and core languages, because the styles of programming themselves are very different.

yohanatan 12y ago
Yea, I second what froaway said. 'Scripting' in Scala is quite easy and works like you would hope it would. Integration w/ the shell is quite nice and it's as concise as Python, Ruby et al and yet also typesafe. Win-win. Also, I wouldn't worry too much about finding Scala programmers-- in my opinion, what you want to find rather is good programmers. And, good programmers can pick up Scala (or any other language) in short order.
frowaway001 12y ago
I think Scala especially excels at prototyping. I use it from quick and dirty scripts and ad-hoc data-processing (the stuff you would usually use Perl/bash/...) over exploratory programming, database work (SQL) and architecture sketches (GUI tools) to full-blown (web) applications (JavaEE, Python, Ruby, ...) and browser scripting (usually JavaScript). I miss none of the "standard" technologies.

nostrademons 12y ago