3 ms·

Scala Vs Clojure – Let's get down to business

58 points by fogus 17y ago

jister 17y ago
another language comparison, again?
- ulf 17y ago
  Actually this one is kind of refreshing: neutral. As well gives a little peek into Scala for people who do not know it (like me)...
  - scott_s 17y ago
    I did not think it was neutral. While the code comparisons and one benchmark come about similarly, his characterizations of Scala seem biased to me.
    - ConceptDog 17y ago
      Very biased. I've read some pro clojure stuff from the author before. I can't understand the point in spending time slagging off another open source project that simply has a different point of view. They're all tools built to solve a problem. Maybe you can't find a use for a 5 headed hammer, but the person who created it found one.
  - tomh- 17y ago
    This is not neutral, the guy works exclusively in Clojure as freelancer, so it is fair to assume he is sort of biased.. as others mentioned here before he misses some important aspects which Scala has to offer.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      He misses important aspects of clojure (based on some of the comments on his site) and Python as well. In short, he should probably not be getting exposure this wide with these troll articles.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    We seem to have differing definitions of 'neutral'.
10ren 17y ago
No mention of libraries (yes, they both can use Java's libraries, but some native ones would be useful). And therefore, no mention of the document of said libraries (which I'm now convinced is crucial).
shrughes 17y ago
This is an entirely superficial comparison. There is none of "this is how the language affects how you design your software" and there is plenty of "oh, here's a quicksort, big and scary. And looking at the table at the top: "object oriented", "statically typed." Is that all the author has to say? You could substitute C# in place of Scala and get the same point-by-point comparison. What the author completely misses is Scala's entire type system. The evil genius monster of a type system. I can't think of any reason why I'd want to use Scala other than the type system -- oh, sure, anonymous functions -- and the fact that not a word is said about traits or type constructors as type parameters or existential types or things that use the word "implicit" is depressing. Scala is not so much object oriented as it is the best strictly evaluated form of Haskell that lives comfortably in the Java ecosystem, that, hey, happens to have classes and traits. And I think it fails to do justice to the good parts of Clojure, too. Also, the benchmark, computing factorial(5000), is nonsense, since it's really measuring the performance of the BigInt implementation. Also, not surprisingly, the one demonstration of the power of macros is the typical body-wrapping kind that might as well be a higher order function.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  I don't think he misses the type system but rather argues that it isn't useful. You may disagree but that's a different matter. Also, I don't know much about Haskell but isn't any "pure" functional language based on immutability and doesn't Java/scala OO essentially assume mutability as per the article?
  - shrughes 17y ago
    He doesn't actually argue that the type system isn't useful. He assumes it derisively. You can take the entire review and replace Scala with C#. What does that tell you? Scala encourages immutability. See case classes, for example. Or if ( ) ... else ... expressions. Stuff is designed to return values rather than be actions that set values. Even try ... catch ... finally blocks are expressions that return values. Being OO has nothing to do with mutability/immutability.
    - 17y ago
ilyak 17y ago
"One guy asked me 'Havent you ever passed arguments in the wrong order and expected a different return than what you got ?" and I'll be honest: No, I haven't. But for people who have a hard time getting arguments order and return types right, this system is a great help. So it has it's place, I must say." Trolololo.
JoeAltmaier 17y ago
Not a comparison of languages; a comparison of language concepts using Scala and Clojure. And language concepts are subjective - use case, user world-view. We learn more about the author than either language.
Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
From a guy that lately programs only in clojure for my own projects : Could you please stop upvoting lau articles. They are troll bait down to every sentences. I mean the guy made a point by saying Static typing is good for people who can't remember the order of function arguments. Isn't it enough to understand ? This article is a joke. The guy has a bias so obvious the eifel tower is small in comparison.
jacquesm 17y ago
python vs clojure (twice), scala vs clojure, can we stop posting this trash, please ? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=890697 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=890697 This guy doesn't have the first inkling of how to benchmark something and he doesn't know how to make a non-fanboy comparison between two sets of anything, especially if one of the anythings is clojure. I'm sure clojure is a great language but this is not the way to do it.
- wicknicks 17y ago
  I agree!
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
joubert 17y ago
The nice thing of course is that you could use BOTH languages in the same code base with full interaction between them.

58 points by fogus 17y ago

jister 17y ago

another language comparison, again?

ulf 17y ago
Actually this one is kind of refreshing: neutral. As well gives a little peek into Scala for people who do not know it (like me)...
- scott_s 17y ago
  I did not think it was neutral. While the code comparisons and one benchmark come about similarly, his characterizations of Scala seem biased to me.
  - ConceptDog 17y ago
    Very biased. I've read some pro clojure stuff from the author before. I can't understand the point in spending time slagging off another open source project that simply has a different point of view. They're all tools built to solve a problem. Maybe you can't find a use for a 5 headed hammer, but the person who created it found one.
- tomh- 17y ago
  This is not neutral, the guy works exclusively in Clojure as freelancer, so it is fair to assume he is sort of biased.. as others mentioned here before he misses some important aspects which Scala has to offer.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    He misses important aspects of clojure (based on some of the comments on his site) and Python as well. In short, he should probably not be getting exposure this wide with these troll articles.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  We seem to have differing definitions of 'neutral'.

10ren 17y ago

No mention of libraries (yes, they both can use Java's libraries, but some native ones would be useful). And therefore, no mention of the document of said libraries (which I'm now convinced is crucial).

shrughes 17y ago

This is an entirely superficial comparison. There is none of "this is how the language affects how you design your software" and there is plenty of "oh, here's a quicksort, big and scary. And looking at the table at the top: "object oriented", "statically typed." Is that all the author has to say? You could substitute C# in place of Scala and get the same point-by-point comparison. What the author completely misses is Scala's entire type system. The evil genius monster of a type system. I can't think of any reason why I'd want to use Scala other than the type system -- oh, sure, anonymous functions -- and the fact that not a word is said about traits or type constructors as type parameters or existential types or things that use the word "implicit" is depressing. Scala is not so much object oriented as it is the best strictly evaluated form of Haskell that lives comfortably in the Java ecosystem, that, hey, happens to have classes and traits. And I think it fails to do justice to the good parts of Clojure, too. Also, the benchmark, computing factorial(5000), is nonsense, since it's really measuring the performance of the BigInt implementation. Also, not surprisingly, the one demonstration of the power of macros is the typical body-wrapping kind that might as well be a higher order function.

joe_the_user 17y ago
I don't think he misses the type system but rather argues that it isn't useful. You may disagree but that's a different matter. Also, I don't know much about Haskell but isn't any "pure" functional language based on immutability and doesn't Java/scala OO essentially assume mutability as per the article?
- shrughes 17y ago
  He doesn't actually argue that the type system isn't useful. He assumes it derisively. You can take the entire review and replace Scala with C#. What does that tell you? Scala encourages immutability. See case classes, for example. Or if ( ) ... else ... expressions. Stuff is designed to return values rather than be actions that set values. Even try ... catch ... finally blocks are expressions that return values. Being OO has nothing to do with mutability/immutability.
  - 17y ago

ilyak 17y ago

"One guy asked me 'Havent you ever passed arguments in the wrong order and expected a different return than what you got ?" and I'll be honest: No, I haven't. But for people who have a hard time getting arguments order and return types right, this system is a great help. So it has it's place, I must say." Trolololo.

JoeAltmaier 17y ago

Not a comparison of languages; a comparison of language concepts using Scala and Clojure. And language concepts are subjective - use case, user world-view. We learn more about the author than either language.

Raphael_Amiard 17y ago

From a guy that lately programs only in clojure for my own projects : Could you please stop upvoting lau articles. They are troll bait down to every sentences. I mean the guy made a point by saying Static typing is good for people who can't remember the order of function arguments. Isn't it enough to understand ? This article is a joke. The guy has a bias so obvious the eifel tower is small in comparison.

jacquesm 17y ago

python vs clojure (twice), scala vs clojure, can we stop posting this trash, please ? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=890697 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=890697 This guy doesn't have the first inkling of how to benchmark something and he doesn't know how to make a non-fanboy comparison between two sets of anything, especially if one of the anythings is clojure. I'm sure clojure is a great language but this is not the way to do it.

wicknicks 17y ago
I agree!

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

joubert 17y ago

The nice thing of course is that you could use BOTH languages in the same code base with full interaction between them.