8 ms·

Bruce Eckel: Rethinking Scala

61 points by sorokod 12y ago

scott_s 12y ago
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/bruceeckel/rethinking-scala-presented-in-san-francisco-may-7-2014 http://www.slideshare.net/bruceeckel/rethinking-scala-presen...
- choward 12y ago
  These slides seem pretty meaningless on their own. Usually if slides have meaningful information the presentation wasn't very good.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    It is helpful for those of us who live in countries where Youtube is blocked.
    - saryant 12y ago
      Not in this case. Those slides don't provide anything on their own.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        It gave me the sentiment of the talk, at least, to figure out if I should watch the video at work (where we have our own line to the unlocked internet). I don't feel like I wasted my time going through 30 of them.
        scott_s 12y ago
        Agreed, which is why I posted them. Even though I can access YouTube, video is not a good way for me to consume information at work, and I found I was having trouble getting a general feel for the talk from checking out snippets.
        seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        Ya, I really wish more good talks were converted into web essays, like what Bret Victor did between the Inventing on Principle talk and Learnable Programming essay. It is just easier for me to read things, skimming at first, more deeply later, than to sit through a video in one shot. But I'm getting old, I heard younger kids prefer videos exclusively.
        WalterBright 12y ago
        I wish most presentations came with transcripts. I can read a hour video transcript in a few minutes. Probably too much to ask for.
        choward 12y ago
        That makes sense. I really dislike being linked to slides and not being able to find the presentation. That wasn't the case this time though, since there was a video.
oimaz 12y ago
I'm disagree with his comparison of scala community to "league of legends". I've found the scala community, especially, the #scala IRC to be friendliest so far. Folks are always there to help you out irrespective of your level of proficiency with language or programming in general
- lmm 12y ago
  Was this during the period when dibblego was banned?
  - oimaz 12y ago
    seems like it
- eranation 12y ago
  I second that, I don't know where he went, but at least in reddit.com/r/scala people are very nice and helpful, and Martin Odersky visits there frequently and answers questions. I was in touch with several people in the community and from typesafe / EPFL and really don't know where the league of legends comparison comes from. In any case, I do suggest anyone who haven't seen or tried Scala to give it a shot. It's a fun and productive language. And the community is pretty great in my experience...
  - eranation 12y ago
    Sorry for the duplicate comment, I submitted after no-procast and apparently got it submitted twice (where did the delete / edit button go? :)
  - hillsarealiv3 12y ago
    I've found the Scala community to be exceptionally helpful and friendly in general, with the occasional you're doing it wrong we know better vibe from a minority. Most of the contention seems to be on forums like reddit programming where 1 or 2 specific (and disproportionately active) users have almost turned Scala-bashing into a profession.
- 12y ago
harry8 12y ago
Summarising the content: about 9:10 "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. "Our time is much better spent using a high level language..." Which is a sweepingly generalisation for which the exceptions, nuances and caveats are very clear to most reading Hacker News. I'm stopping now. That's 10 minutes of my life I'm not getting back. If someone thinks this promotes scala please think again, it probably has the opposite effect. If someone was kind enough to point out where the non-ridiculous content actually starts and provide some summary of why it might be worth anyone's time I'd have another look but I think I'll be looking for thoughts on scala elsewhere. Signal to noise far too low for me here. YMMV. As an aside, promoting a wider popularity for a skill set you already have is usually a good idea professionally. Ask any Perl expert. This is probably has something to do with the vitriol in the "programming language wars." It's nothing new, Dick Gabriel described C as "a virus." Many C++ promoters hate on C reflexively even when they're right. Many Java's hate on C++, Pythonistas on Perl, Haskell on Scala etc etc. Choose life.
- brandonmenc 12y ago
  > "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. He clearly states that they were considered ridiculous because of their (perceived) performance - he didn't say people doubted their existence.
  - harry8 12y ago
    They weren't considered such by anyone with any expertise. If he has some he should have said "Falsely considered ..." Or people might think less of his own analysis. People might be wrong to think so due to poor communication on his part..?
    - zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
simi_ 12y ago
Gratuitous comment about how "rethinking Scala" and "scaling Rethink(DB)" are both valid expressions.
acjohnson55 12y ago
I think Eckel sees Scala the way I do, as a somehow incomplete vision of the future of programming, but I was disappointed by this talk. I was hoping to hear some deeper insights into what specifically Eckel would want to rethink about Scala. I don't think he was really able to elucidate what he wants to change. He vaguely mentioned Scala 3, but didn't seem to have looked very deeply into it. Like others, I was also a bit perplexed by his description of the community. In his descriptions of Python's BDFL, I couldn't help but feel Odersky's leadership was shortchanged a bit. I primarily programmed in Scala for the past year and my experience with the community has been nothing but positive, whether on mailing lists or StackOverflow. Of course, perception is reality, and even Odersky has spoken on a culture of elitism in Scala in the past. I also think the lack of women in the Scala scene makes a point in itself, as well. I just wish more cogent examples had been provided, because the problems in the community need to be highlighted before they can be solved. My biggest issue with Scala hasn't been community, but lack of maturity on the project level. The larger Python, JS, and Ruby communities simply have more out there in terms of community contributed content. The tradeoff for me has been that versus the sheer elegance of Scala. I also think there's a lot of truth to the point that the multiparadigm of ways to do something in Scala leads to each team or organization developing a distinct style, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, Scala code seems have this property of evolution toward succinctness and elegance over time. You may not know how to get it right the first shot, but you'll eventually roll down the gradually sloped pit of success. In JS, by contrast, doing things the right way tends to look almost like an abuse of the language.
gamblorrr 12y ago
I really don't mind the part about Java where class names and variable names are long and wordy, and camel cased almost to the point that a fully qualified class name, including the package name, becomes something of a run-on sentence. This part ties directly into the premise of interactive tooling, in that, once you have an IDE with tab completion for all your types and methods, you notice the huge benefit this adds when confronting gigantic but powerful, feature-complete libraries. Doubly so, for a compiled language that can accurately infer syntax integrity as you type, based on compiled binaries that don't require painfully witchy runtime linking against fragile, obscure file system paths. As long as you don't shoot yourself in the foot (or let some grumpy, adversarial senile developer hobble you) with a horrid, torturous crackpot scheme of reflection and introspection, or stultifying nightmare-mode XML, Java's still pretty damn handy any old day of the week. There's definitely still an enterprisey, corporate air to the culture of Java, and it can be near as bad as dealing with an obnoxious Oracle DBA, or a smug Dennis Nedry Windows admin, but that's more a political issue than a programmerly issue. Is that the product of an "evil bit" flipped to "true" on a league of legends server? I'm not so sure. Newer languages get a lot of bro-grammers, so I'd say pick your poison... Just sayin'...

61 points by sorokod 12y ago

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/bruceeckel/rethinking-scala-presented-in-san-francisco-may-7-2014 http://www.slideshare.net/bruceeckel/rethinking-scala-presen...

choward 12y ago
These slides seem pretty meaningless on their own. Usually if slides have meaningful information the presentation wasn't very good.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  It is helpful for those of us who live in countries where Youtube is blocked.
  - saryant 12y ago
    Not in this case. Those slides don't provide anything on their own.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      It gave me the sentiment of the talk, at least, to figure out if I should watch the video at work (where we have our own line to the unlocked internet). I don't feel like I wasted my time going through 30 of them.
      - scott_s 12y ago
        Agreed, which is why I posted them. Even though I can access YouTube, video is not a good way for me to consume information at work, and I found I was having trouble getting a general feel for the talk from checking out snippets.
        seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        Ya, I really wish more good talks were converted into web essays, like what Bret Victor did between the Inventing on Principle talk and Learnable Programming essay. It is just easier for me to read things, skimming at first, more deeply later, than to sit through a video in one shot. But I'm getting old, I heard younger kids prefer videos exclusively.
      - WalterBright 12y ago
        I wish most presentations came with transcripts. I can read a hour video transcript in a few minutes. Probably too much to ask for.
      - choward 12y ago
        That makes sense. I really dislike being linked to slides and not being able to find the presentation. That wasn't the case this time though, since there was a video.

oimaz 12y ago

I'm disagree with his comparison of scala community to "league of legends". I've found the scala community, especially, the #scala IRC to be friendliest so far. Folks are always there to help you out irrespective of your level of proficiency with language or programming in general

lmm 12y ago
Was this during the period when dibblego was banned?
- oimaz 12y ago
  seems like it
eranation 12y ago
I second that, I don't know where he went, but at least in reddit.com/r/scala people are very nice and helpful, and Martin Odersky visits there frequently and answers questions. I was in touch with several people in the community and from typesafe / EPFL and really don't know where the league of legends comparison comes from. In any case, I do suggest anyone who haven't seen or tried Scala to give it a shot. It's a fun and productive language. And the community is pretty great in my experience...
- eranation 12y ago
  Sorry for the duplicate comment, I submitted after no-procast and apparently got it submitted twice (where did the delete / edit button go? :)
- hillsarealiv3 12y ago
  I've found the Scala community to be exceptionally helpful and friendly in general, with the occasional you're doing it wrong we know better vibe from a minority. Most of the contention seems to be on forums like reddit programming where 1 or 2 specific (and disproportionately active) users have almost turned Scala-bashing into a profession.
12y ago

harry8 12y ago

Summarising the content: about 9:10 "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. "Our time is much better spent using a high level language..." Which is a sweepingly generalisation for which the exceptions, nuances and caveats are very clear to most reading Hacker News. I'm stopping now. That's 10 minutes of my life I'm not getting back. If someone thinks this promotes scala please think again, it probably has the opposite effect. If someone was kind enough to point out where the non-ridiculous content actually starts and provide some summary of why it might be worth anyone's time I'd have another look but I think I'll be looking for thoughts on scala elsewhere. Signal to noise far too low for me here. YMMV. As an aside, promoting a wider popularity for a skill set you already have is usually a good idea professionally. Ask any Perl expert. This is probably has something to do with the vitriol in the "programming language wars." It's nothing new, Dick Gabriel described C as "a virus." Many C++ promoters hate on C reflexively even when they're right. Many Java's hate on C++, Pythonistas on Perl, Haskell on Scala etc etc. Choose life.

brandonmenc 12y ago
> "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. He clearly states that they were considered ridiculous because of their (perceived) performance - he didn't say people doubted their existence.
- harry8 12y ago
  They weren't considered such by anyone with any expertise. If he has some he should have said "Falsely considered ..." Or people might think less of his own analysis. People might be wrong to think so due to poor communication on his part..?
  - zak_mc_kracken 12y ago

simi_ 12y ago

Gratuitous comment about how "rethinking Scala" and "scaling Rethink(DB)" are both valid expressions.

acjohnson55 12y ago

I think Eckel sees Scala the way I do, as a somehow incomplete vision of the future of programming, but I was disappointed by this talk. I was hoping to hear some deeper insights into what specifically Eckel would want to rethink about Scala. I don't think he was really able to elucidate what he wants to change. He vaguely mentioned Scala 3, but didn't seem to have looked very deeply into it. Like others, I was also a bit perplexed by his description of the community. In his descriptions of Python's BDFL, I couldn't help but feel Odersky's leadership was shortchanged a bit. I primarily programmed in Scala for the past year and my experience with the community has been nothing but positive, whether on mailing lists or StackOverflow. Of course, perception is reality, and even Odersky has spoken on a culture of elitism in Scala in the past. I also think the lack of women in the Scala scene makes a point in itself, as well. I just wish more cogent examples had been provided, because the problems in the community need to be highlighted before they can be solved. My biggest issue with Scala hasn't been community, but lack of maturity on the project level. The larger Python, JS, and Ruby communities simply have more out there in terms of community contributed content. The tradeoff for me has been that versus the sheer elegance of Scala. I also think there's a lot of truth to the point that the multiparadigm of ways to do something in Scala leads to each team or organization developing a distinct style, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, Scala code seems have this property of evolution toward succinctness and elegance over time. You may not know how to get it right the first shot, but you'll eventually roll down the gradually sloped pit of success. In JS, by contrast, doing things the right way tends to look almost like an abuse of the language.

gamblorrr 12y ago

I really don't mind the part about Java where class names and variable names are long and wordy, and camel cased almost to the point that a fully qualified class name, including the package name, becomes something of a run-on sentence. This part ties directly into the premise of interactive tooling, in that, once you have an IDE with tab completion for all your types and methods, you notice the huge benefit this adds when confronting gigantic but powerful, feature-complete libraries. Doubly so, for a compiled language that can accurately infer syntax integrity as you type, based on compiled binaries that don't require painfully witchy runtime linking against fragile, obscure file system paths. As long as you don't shoot yourself in the foot (or let some grumpy, adversarial senile developer hobble you) with a horrid, torturous crackpot scheme of reflection and introspection, or stultifying nightmare-mode XML, Java's still pretty damn handy any old day of the week. There's definitely still an enterprisey, corporate air to the culture of Java, and it can be near as bad as dealing with an obnoxious Oracle DBA, or a smug Dennis Nedry Windows admin, but that's more a political issue than a programmerly issue. Is that the product of an "evil bit" flipped to "true" on a league of legends server? I'm not so sure. Newer languages get a lot of bro-grammers, so I'd say pick your poison... Just sayin'...