7 ms·

I feel that most of (not all) the criticisms are fair, but superficial. True, the IDEs are poor, for a certain definition of poor. Had I not used IntelliJ for

I feel that most of (not all) the criticisms are fair, but superficial. True, the IDEs are poor, for a certain definition of poor. Had I not used IntelliJ for Java, for example, I'd find IntelliJ for Scala amazing. Knowing how much better it can be spoiled me, but frankly, IntelliJ for Scala is not bad. It just could be better. Also, Emacs has a very robust Scala mode. True, there's a lot to learn before you can consider yourself fully fluent. You do not need to know everything, however. And once you've started on the path, things tend to flow naturally. For example, implicit conversions are easy to grasp. Once you understand them, implicit parameters and type classes are not much more complicated. Once you know type classes, it opens the door to a lot of functional "design patterns" - functors, applicatives, monads... these are not strictly necessary, but they're fun to learn about. And they teach you algebraic data types, which in Scala means case classes, sealed traits, ... it all sort of flows naturally. True, it's easy to write absolutely un-maintainable code. While that's true of any language, Scala makes it rather easier than most. It's also very easy to write highly maintainable, legible code, and to avoid complex, ascii art based operators (or at the very least to offer wordy equivalences at 0 cost through `@inline`). I feel that saying "it can be hard to read, if you don't follow basic guidelines" is a bad reason not to use a language. A good reason to be careful, though. My personal experience is that, once you start feeling comfortable with the language, you get much more productive than with Java. It does require some initial work, though: if all you know is OO, learning how to design your code for composition rather than inheritance takes a while - it takes a while just to realise that it's not a bad idea, let alone embrace it! Also, ScalaCheck. Man, do I wish there was a good Java equivalent for some of my legacy code (that would not require me to rewrite all of my tests).

bilalhusain 12y ago
Often the argument is that if languages are superheroes, Scala is trying to be one with all the possible superpowers. When you learn how to use them and have control over when to use them (and for good or bad), everything will be a breeze. But the assumption that everyone will spend time learning the right ways and not use in production before achieving zen is impractical.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Programming is like learning music. Some people are willing to invest the time needed to learn to play piano, guitar, violin... Others are happy to be able to play triangles.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Anyone can learn how to play piano. Few play it well. It is much easier to master the cowbell. Analogies are so OO.
    - macmacbr 12y ago
      I've seen so many people having problems with the cowbell. I don't think it holds true. :)
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        The existence of people who cannot master cowbell doesn't mean that it is as hard to master as the piano :)
  - pron 12y ago
    ... except Scala isn't confident enough to be an instrument. It has to be all of them it once. It's a trumpet with strings taught across the bell (which you can play with or without a bow), and drum skin draped over the leadpipe.
    - Dewie 12y ago
      It's a construction set with many pieces which you can combine to make new instruments. Maybe you have a mouldable body which can be made to support one neck and several auxiliary strings... and then you have a harp guitar. Maybe add some tenor strings to that later. It's a scalable language by design.
thescrewdriver 12y ago
Scala does take more work to learn than Java, but I never choose Java over Scala for a new project. Scala is just so much more modern and expressive. You can write perfectly readable Scala. It just takes some taste and common sense, or alternatively follow guidelines such as: http://twitter.github.io/effectivescala/ http://twitter.github.io/effectivescala/ We've found IntellJ + Scala to be an excellent combo for our purposes.
- Aqueous 12y ago
  I've been using Sublime as my Scala "IDE" for a while now - what it loses in certain 'critical' IDE features like code completion and variable extraction it gains in speed, ease of use and lack of bloat. I agree that as far as real IDEs go, IntelliJ is the best - but that's not saying much. The rest are pretty awful. They all do many things poorly, whereas Sublime does a few things very well.
dreamweapon 12y ago
Once you know type classes, it opens the door to a lot of functional "design patterns" - functors, applicatives, monads... these are not strictly necessary, but they're fun to learn about. For a certain value of "fun", I guess. Generally I find in engineering that it's best not to add abstraction (or other forms of complexity) to a system unless there are strong, clear benefits to doing so. The more we learn about Scala, it's just not clear that it delivers those benefits (in proportion to the time investment it demands). It's not that I don't "dig" abstraction. It's just that I have an infinite list of things to learn about (some fun, some not so fun) in any given development environment. (In general, most of these are in the non-fun category: dealing with dependencies,build tools, and legacy quirks that can never be fixed). And another infinite list in my own problem domain -- you know, that thing I'm supposed to be, theoretically, directly working on (in the service of which all of these fancy software tools were supposed to be a means, not an end). Plenty of very real and juicy abstractions. More than I can ever hope to get to the bottom of, in fact. But don't get me wrong. If applicatives and such are your bag, then that's great. Maybe Scala is the right language for you, then.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pea 12y ago
  I agree with you in terms of abstraction; I do believe Scala adds a lot to practical programming as well. I feel the community is tainted by a bunch of type-nerds trying to compile their Haskell, and don't care about writing simple, maintainable code. We use Scala because it is speedier to push features. I work much quicker in it, and we don't have to worry about a lot of the stuff we would in Java. That said, we don't use a bunch of the most complex features of the language (I am just talking simple pattern matching, map/flatmap/filter/unzip). So far, it's actually the most productive language we've used. Our dig is the community and things peripheral from the core language: documentation is generally awful (Play, SBT). Dependencies management is awful (SBT doesn't work). Libraries are overly complex (Dispatch). And compile times suck.
- eropple 12y ago
  I'm a pretty big Scala fan, but I think this post is spot on. A lot of the stuff that's fun is not terribly useful, and I see a lot of people in the Scala community going down that road. The most perfect codebase in the world doesn't mean much if it doesn't do anything. This is why, despite feeling real weird about it, I'm writing my current personal project in Rails rather than Play. It's one case where worse-is-better kind of benefits me--it forces me to focus on my problem, rather than on all the cool bright-shiny-objects that are not my problem. (There's also a discussion to be had about the Scala-should-be-Haskell crowd, who I think come from a good place but are led by some of the most overtly poisonous people I've ever had to deal with.)
psuter 12y ago
I agree that the criticism is fair. It does seem to come from someone with relatively little experience, but if anything, that makes it more valuable. Languages need adoption and new adopters by definition have no experience. Regarding IDE support, which inevitably comes up when discussing Scala, an honest question: what are good IDEs for Ruby, Python, Clojure, JavaScript, Haskell, OCaml? Is there a good IDE for C++ besides Windows-only Visual Studio? For C? It seems that Scala always get compared to Java in that domain, but in my experience Java is the exception, not the norm. (Edit: I assume support for CLR languages is great too?)
- bad_user 12y ago
  If you compare IDE support with those languages, then Scala's IDEs are stellar. I would dare say that IntelliJ IDEA for Scala is better than Visual Studio.
  - kasey_junk 12y ago
    It doesn't compare to Visual Studio with Resharper installed though.
- akavel 12y ago
  As to C++, Eclipse is good. (Not perfect, not certain if great, but it is good.)
  - pkolaczk 12y ago
    And how long did it take Eclipse to get to that non-perfect-but-good state? Several years. When I checked 6 years ago, C++ support had been already there for a few years and was quite awful. And C++ type system is much less powerful than Scala's, so it should be theoretically much easier to provide good IDE support for.
    - lmm 12y ago
      The C++ template system is turing-complete and partial specializations are more or less equivalent to the way you do type-level programming in Scala with different priority implicits, so I don't see that it would be any easier to support than the Scala type system.

bilalhusain 12y ago

Often the argument is that if languages are superheroes, Scala is trying to be one with all the possible superpowers. When you learn how to use them and have control over when to use them (and for good or bad), everything will be a breeze. But the assumption that everyone will spend time learning the right ways and not use in production before achieving zen is impractical.

pjmlp 12y ago
Programming is like learning music. Some people are willing to invest the time needed to learn to play piano, guitar, violin... Others are happy to be able to play triangles.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Anyone can learn how to play piano. Few play it well. It is much easier to master the cowbell. Analogies are so OO.
  - macmacbr 12y ago
    I've seen so many people having problems with the cowbell. I don't think it holds true. :)
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      The existence of people who cannot master cowbell doesn't mean that it is as hard to master as the piano :)
- pron 12y ago
  ... except Scala isn't confident enough to be an instrument. It has to be all of them it once. It's a trumpet with strings taught across the bell (which you can play with or without a bow), and drum skin draped over the leadpipe.
  - Dewie 12y ago
    It's a construction set with many pieces which you can combine to make new instruments. Maybe you have a mouldable body which can be made to support one neck and several auxiliary strings... and then you have a harp guitar. Maybe add some tenor strings to that later. It's a scalable language by design.

thescrewdriver 12y ago

Scala does take more work to learn than Java, but I never choose Java over Scala for a new project. Scala is just so much more modern and expressive. You can write perfectly readable Scala. It just takes some taste and common sense, or alternatively follow guidelines such as: http://twitter.github.io/effectivescala/ http://twitter.github.io/effectivescala/ We've found IntellJ + Scala to be an excellent combo for our purposes.

Aqueous 12y ago
I've been using Sublime as my Scala "IDE" for a while now - what it loses in certain 'critical' IDE features like code completion and variable extraction it gains in speed, ease of use and lack of bloat. I agree that as far as real IDEs go, IntelliJ is the best - but that's not saying much. The rest are pretty awful. They all do many things poorly, whereas Sublime does a few things very well.

dreamweapon 12y ago

Once you know type classes, it opens the door to a lot of functional "design patterns" - functors, applicatives, monads... these are not strictly necessary, but they're fun to learn about. For a certain value of "fun", I guess. Generally I find in engineering that it's best not to add abstraction (or other forms of complexity) to a system unless there are strong, clear benefits to doing so. The more we learn about Scala, it's just not clear that it delivers those benefits (in proportion to the time investment it demands). It's not that I don't "dig" abstraction. It's just that I have an infinite list of things to learn about (some fun, some not so fun) in any given development environment. (In general, most of these are in the non-fun category: dealing with dependencies,build tools, and legacy quirks that can never be fixed). And another infinite list in my own problem domain -- you know, that thing I'm supposed to be, theoretically, directly working on (in the service of which all of these fancy software tools were supposed to be a means, not an end). Plenty of very real and juicy abstractions. More than I can ever hope to get to the bottom of, in fact. But don't get me wrong. If applicatives and such are your bag, then that's great. Maybe Scala is the right language for you, then.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pea 12y ago
I agree with you in terms of abstraction; I do believe Scala adds a lot to practical programming as well. I feel the community is tainted by a bunch of type-nerds trying to compile their Haskell, and don't care about writing simple, maintainable code. We use Scala because it is speedier to push features. I work much quicker in it, and we don't have to worry about a lot of the stuff we would in Java. That said, we don't use a bunch of the most complex features of the language (I am just talking simple pattern matching, map/flatmap/filter/unzip). So far, it's actually the most productive language we've used. Our dig is the community and things peripheral from the core language: documentation is generally awful (Play, SBT). Dependencies management is awful (SBT doesn't work). Libraries are overly complex (Dispatch). And compile times suck.
eropple 12y ago
I'm a pretty big Scala fan, but I think this post is spot on. A lot of the stuff that's fun is not terribly useful, and I see a lot of people in the Scala community going down that road. The most perfect codebase in the world doesn't mean much if it doesn't do anything. This is why, despite feeling real weird about it, I'm writing my current personal project in Rails rather than Play. It's one case where worse-is-better kind of benefits me--it forces me to focus on my problem, rather than on all the cool bright-shiny-objects that are not my problem. (There's also a discussion to be had about the Scala-should-be-Haskell crowd, who I think come from a good place but are led by some of the most overtly poisonous people I've ever had to deal with.)

psuter 12y ago

I agree that the criticism is fair. It does seem to come from someone with relatively little experience, but if anything, that makes it more valuable. Languages need adoption and new adopters by definition have no experience. Regarding IDE support, which inevitably comes up when discussing Scala, an honest question: what are good IDEs for Ruby, Python, Clojure, JavaScript, Haskell, OCaml? Is there a good IDE for C++ besides Windows-only Visual Studio? For C? It seems that Scala always get compared to Java in that domain, but in my experience Java is the exception, not the norm. (Edit: I assume support for CLR languages is great too?)

bad_user 12y ago
If you compare IDE support with those languages, then Scala's IDEs are stellar. I would dare say that IntelliJ IDEA for Scala is better than Visual Studio.
- kasey_junk 12y ago
  It doesn't compare to Visual Studio with Resharper installed though.
akavel 12y ago
As to C++, Eclipse is good. (Not perfect, not certain if great, but it is good.)
- pkolaczk 12y ago
  And how long did it take Eclipse to get to that non-perfect-but-good state? Several years. When I checked 6 years ago, C++ support had been already there for a few years and was quite awful. And C++ type system is much less powerful than Scala's, so it should be theoretically much easier to provide good IDE support for.
  - lmm 12y ago
    The C++ template system is turing-complete and partial specializations are more or less equivalent to the way you do type-level programming in Scala with different priority implicits, so I don't see that it would be any easier to support than the Scala type system.