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I would think that "people" were driving the company to the ground. I'm working on a large-scale Scala project that has been going on for years. The codebase is

I would think that "people" were driving the company to the ground. I'm working on a large-scale Scala project that has been going on for years. The codebase is clean, methods are easy to reason about. It not as verbose as Java would be, there's no monkey-patching like you might see in Ruby, refactoring is much safer than it would be in JavaScript, and it runs on Linux much better than C# would. And thanks to FP the code is thread-safe and mostly free of side-effects (except where they're explicitly required). I wouldn't trade Scala for any other language, for this kind of work.

bnejad 12y ago
What kind of project is it? Genuinely curious.
- facorreia 12y ago
  Web app with complex, distributed back-end processing.
istvan__ 12y ago
Is it an accident that you picked the worst offenders for each category? :) Not as verbose as Java -> Java is probably the most verbose compiled OOP language Refactoring is safer than it would be in JS -> I think with the IDEs this means almost nothing. Runs faster on Linux than C# -> I mean seriously, Java's biggest advertised feature was multi-platform support while we know that Redmond guys don't care about other platforms too much. I feel like you are trying to justify Scala by comparing it to other languages and picking a feature or property of those languages that is the worst or almost the worst. How about this: - Scala has such a nice type system that it blows out OCaml from the water - Scala running faster on Linux than C++ etc. I would expect honesty when it comes to using languages that would drive this twisted and wicked developer world to something better. If we keep using the worst languages to compare to we are not going to improve. This is what I think.
- facorreia 12y ago
  It's a way of saying that I value a language that is not too verbose, that doesn't encourage monkey-patching, that has strong types, and that works on Linux without too much trouble. The languages I listed do not meet at least one of my requirements, that's why I prefer not to work with them.
- lmm 12y ago
  Scala isn't the best at any of these things though. It's great because it's an all-rounder language. How about this: Scala doesn't - quite - have the safety and conciseness of Haskell. But it's close. Scala doesn't - quite - have the enterprise support and tooling infrastructure (monitoring/instrumentation, profiling, debugging, IDEs, library ecosystem) that Java does. But it's close. Scala doesn't - quite - have the clarity of Python. But it's close. Scala doesn't - quite - have the performance of C++. But it's close.
  - anon3_ 12y ago
    What scala does is sloppily bolt on everything without putting any checks or balances. I don't doubt your sincerity. Try to pull yourself out and understand it as an investor: $500 a day to pay for a scala engineer. Not a word about the bottom line. Python? Ruby? Are they algorithmically fast? No, but they ship and sell.
    - lmm 12y ago
      Depends what you're making. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html can apply - what I'm working on right now with Spark I dread to think how you'd do reliably in any other language. > $500 a day to pay for a scala engineer. Not a word about the bottom line. Maybe - I don't make that much and I have 5 years' Scala experience. (I have a relaxed environment and great culture though, so I'm not complaining). What I really don't get is Java companies where developers are chomping at the bit to use Scala and management says no - your devs are volunteering to become devs that companies would pay 2x for, the least you can do is let them.
    - 12y ago

bnejad 12y ago

What kind of project is it? Genuinely curious.

facorreia 12y ago
Web app with complex, distributed back-end processing.

istvan__ 12y ago

Is it an accident that you picked the worst offenders for each category? :) Not as verbose as Java -> Java is probably the most verbose compiled OOP language Refactoring is safer than it would be in JS -> I think with the IDEs this means almost nothing. Runs faster on Linux than C# -> I mean seriously, Java's biggest advertised feature was multi-platform support while we know that Redmond guys don't care about other platforms too much. I feel like you are trying to justify Scala by comparing it to other languages and picking a feature or property of those languages that is the worst or almost the worst. How about this: - Scala has such a nice type system that it blows out OCaml from the water - Scala running faster on Linux than C++ etc. I would expect honesty when it comes to using languages that would drive this twisted and wicked developer world to something better. If we keep using the worst languages to compare to we are not going to improve. This is what I think.

facorreia 12y ago
It's a way of saying that I value a language that is not too verbose, that doesn't encourage monkey-patching, that has strong types, and that works on Linux without too much trouble. The languages I listed do not meet at least one of my requirements, that's why I prefer not to work with them.
lmm 12y ago
Scala isn't the best at any of these things though. It's great because it's an all-rounder language. How about this: Scala doesn't - quite - have the safety and conciseness of Haskell. But it's close. Scala doesn't - quite - have the enterprise support and tooling infrastructure (monitoring/instrumentation, profiling, debugging, IDEs, library ecosystem) that Java does. But it's close. Scala doesn't - quite - have the clarity of Python. But it's close. Scala doesn't - quite - have the performance of C++. But it's close.
- anon3_ 12y ago
  What scala does is sloppily bolt on everything without putting any checks or balances. I don't doubt your sincerity. Try to pull yourself out and understand it as an investor: $500 a day to pay for a scala engineer. Not a word about the bottom line. Python? Ruby? Are they algorithmically fast? No, but they ship and sell.
  - lmm 12y ago
    Depends what you're making. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html can apply - what I'm working on right now with Spark I dread to think how you'd do reliably in any other language. > $500 a day to pay for a scala engineer. Not a word about the bottom line. Maybe - I don't make that much and I have 5 years' Scala experience. (I have a relaxed environment and great culture though, so I'm not complaining). What I really don't get is Java companies where developers are chomping at the bit to use Scala and management says no - your devs are volunteering to become devs that companies would pay 2x for, the least you can do is let them.
  - 12y ago