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Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#11

Post by scarface74 »

What’s your end result? If you are focused on career based learning, there are a lot more jobs out there for pure Java development and Kotlin is picking up serious steam especially when it comes to Android development.

Besides if you already a .Net developer, you’re probably already using JetBrains R#. They are behind Kotlin and the best IDE for it.

I’m also not a Java fan for a lot of reasons but the syntax of Java is not that far from C# that I could see liking one and hating the other.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#12

Post by segmondy »

You should be learning how to answer these questions yourself. Part of growing up as a programmer is being able to answer. What language should I learn, what framework/library should I learn, what project should I work on. Everyone is different, with different background and goals. You must learn to figure out where you are and where you're going and then answer the question for yourself. There has never been a better time to learn Scala for at least one programmer out there and at the same time, it could be the worst mistake another could make right now.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#13

Post by mruts »

dev_dull wrote: post #10
mruts wrote: post #9

I love scala, it’s probably my favorite language. It’s one of the most flexible and powerful languages I’ve ever come across. The downside of this is that it very complicated, I wouldn’t consider myself anywhere close to an expert even after developing with it professionally over 5 years. In regards to new projects, I do believe people are using it for new stuff. Both Spark and Akka are very powerful libraries that h…

> Imo, Scala is the most advanced language on the jvm, far outclassing Kotlin, Clojure, and Java in terms of expressiveness. Exactly why I don’t want any new scala code on my team. We don’t need engineers spending three days arguing about pedantic differences in the language because something can be done 8 different ways. And who wants to maintain something in scala that they didn’t write? It’s a nightmare.

I mean, as long as everyone agrees to use purely functional constructs and heavy use of monadic intetfaces, I haven’t found it a problem. Without mutability and with referential transparency for all structures, I think it’s fine.

The problem is when you have a Java guy on the team who writes crap OO code. That’s when it becomes impossible to reason about. We had a rule on my last scala dev team that if you wanted to use a var or a structure from collection.mutable, you had to give a presentation on why it was necessary.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#14

Post by fmjrey »

If you only care about marketability on the backend side, then scala is certainly a fair choice. The difficulty with scala is the complexity of the language itself.

If you want to improve your own thought process rather than your skill in just one programming language, then clojure(script) would be a better choice. Once you've been through the learning and practice curve, the benefits of having decomplected your mind will spill to other languages.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#15

Post by indemnity »

I lead a team who rewrote their stack from C#/C++/Win to Java/C++/Node.

Big wins were being able to leverage the much larger ecosystem, and containerization.

We played with Scala but it didn’t work for our team, the expressivity is a two edged sword. Runtime is absolutely fine though it was all about complexity, and poor developer tooling. And since we are in a smaller market, not SV, sticking to platforms where we can find hires was probably a better call for our company.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#16

Post by kotrunga »

spir wrote: post #5

This link compares search volume for Scala, Rust, and Kotlin for past 12 months in U.S. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F091... (Scala wins by a large margin!) Awhile ago I chose Scala for a multi-year side project. I love writing Scala. I think the Scala community is quietly productive and mostly talks to themselves. I'm not a Scala expert by any means, but I have have been programming for aw…

Just for comparison... see the same query, with Go and JavaScript added in.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F091...

I'd like to learn Scala too. At the moment it's definitely not as prevalent as other languages, but it's higher than emerging languages, which I think was @spir's goal.

I didn't add this to invalidate the parent comment; just to add another view.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#17

Post by scarface74 »

indemnity wrote: post #15

I lead a team who rewrote their stack from C#/C++/Win to Java/C++/Node. Big wins were being able to leverage the much larger ecosystem, and containerization. We played with Scala but it didn’t work for our team, the expressivity is a two edged sword. Runtime is absolutely fine though it was all about complexity, and poor developer tooling. And since we are in a smaller market, not SV, sticking to platforms where we c…

What big win did you get from moving from C# to Java that you wouldn’t get just from moving to .Net Core?

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#18

Post by scarface74 »

pjmlp wrote: post #3

Even if you end up not using it for anything in production, it is always worthwhile to learn new programming languages, how they approach solving problems and structuring programs. It opens our mind to new ways to architecture our software.

Assuming that you don’t have other obligations like family, hobbies, etc.

I specifically optimize the limited amount of free time I have to devote to career self improvement to what is going to help me be more competitive in the job market.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#19

Post by happythought »

segmondy wrote: post #12

You should be learning how to answer these questions yourself. Part of growing up as a programmer is being able to answer. What language should I learn, what framework/library should I learn, what project should I work on. Everyone is different, with different background and goals. You must learn to figure out where you are and where you're going and then answer the question for yourself. There has never been a bette…

In my opinion, your criticism is unwarranted here. Asking about the job market for a language on HN is completely valid and doesn’t signal an inability for OP to answer the question on their own.

Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019?

#20

Post by pjmlp »

scarface74 wrote: post #18
pjmlp wrote: post #3

Even if you end up not using it for anything in production, it is always worthwhile to learn new programming languages, how they approach solving problems and structuring programs. It opens our mind to new ways to architecture our software.

Assuming that you don’t have other obligations like family, hobbies, etc. I specifically optimize the limited amount of free time I have to devote to career self improvement to what is going to help me be more competitive in the job market.

Having the skills of being able to bring new ideas into existing software stacks, without forcing the business to lose money with yet another rewrite of the month, is exactly one way of being more competitive in the job market.
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