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Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#121

Post by istvan__ »

lmm wrote: post #108
istvan__ wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Right. Let me take this from a different angle. I like to hear about projects moving away from technology much more than jumping onto a band wagon. Right now, Scala feels to me as a band wagon. Some of the guys who moved to use Scala from Java just simply moved back because they realized that almost all of the features are available (emphasis on almost) in Java (especially in Java 8). On the other hand, learning Scala takes time so for a while you are writing inefficient code. On the top of that you need to make sure everybody is on the same page in your team, that is also additional effort. All of these were driving projects (like Kafka) away from Scala (look at the new producer code).

To summarize: Scala to me is just a better Java with too many trade offs.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#122

Post by justthistime_ »

istvan__ wrote: post #121
lmm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Right. Let me take this from a different angle. I like to hear about projects moving away from technology much more than jumping onto a band wagon. Right now, Scala feels to me as a band wagon. Some of the guys who moved to use Scala from Java just simply moved back because they realized that almost all of the features are available (emphasis on almost) in Java (especially in Java 8). On the other hand, learning Scal…

That's interesting, because weren't Kotlin and Ceylon created because people wanted to have "just a better Java", which Scala is not really interested in being?

> they realized that almost all of the features are available

Interesting too. Looking at the stuff I'm currently doing, there is plenty of stuff which is just impossible in Java.

By the way, isn't "Scala has such a nice type system that it blows out OCaml from the water" already the case?

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#123

Post by justthistime_ »

anon3_ wrote: post #118
lmm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

What did it bolt on? Where are the checks missing?

The last major version and the next major version don't ship with any new feature at all, and removing some stuff, so it's a bit hard to see were you are coming from.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#124

Post by lmm »

istvan__ wrote: post #121
lmm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Right. Let me take this from a different angle. I like to hear about projects moving away from technology much more than jumping onto a band wagon. Right now, Scala feels to me as a band wagon. Some of the guys who moved to use Scala from Java just simply moved back because they realized that almost all of the features are available (emphasis on almost) in Java (especially in Java 8). On the other hand, learning Scal…

To my mind the bandwagon has been and gone, with those companies moving away from Scala being those who arrived on the bandwagon and departed with it. But I guess it looks different from the inside.

If you're treating Scala as "just a better Java" then you're not writing inefficient code; you're writing code that could be better Scala code but is still better than the Java you would otherwise have written. Even if you never move beyond the "Java without semicolons" stage, hey, it saved you writing all those semicolons.

But Scala absolutely is a full language and not just a better Java; Java 8 barely scratches the surface of what you can do in Scala. I don't think I could bear to work in a language without higher-kinded types again.

Kafka has some very particular constraints that I don't think apply in general; remember they're making a framework rather than an application.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#125

Post by anon3_ »

justthistime_ wrote: post #123
anon3_ wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What did it bolt on? Where are the checks missing? The last major version and the next major version don't ship with any new feature at all, and removing some stuff, so it's a bit hard to see were you are coming from.

http://www.scala-lang.org/download/changelog.html

Python has PEP's. C and C++ have a ISO standards body. JDK has JEP. Adding a new library feature, let alone overhauling core types, is something scala added as if it was no big deal.

In python, when "new classes" were introduced, it was a big honking deal! You can bet it was heard about everywhere, in the documentation, etc. cpython interpreters like python 2.6 have support going back 5 years, and the changes between 2.x python versions are small compared scala.

There's a reason why enterprise languages move like a toad. We can't have legacy systems breaking. We want our legacy libraries to keep working. In 2015, I write python 2.6 code that works in python 3.5-dev, because they carefully planned releases and I write idiomatically.

Ask yourself if uninitiated generalist prorgammers can really grasp those hieroglyphic walls of text. It's encoding too much information too densely, and inside the density, there's so many clever tricks that block could doing.

It entices solipsistic programming. Long evenings and hard work goes into programming blocks of logic that aren't portable or readable as a future consolidation. This is where scala user's get protective. Their mental thought is legitimate, the output however means nothing to fellow coders.

With java, you could say we satisfy the longterm code quality. Even though I'm cynical of the JVM, I realize that my time and effort would hold out on the long term and my team would have code that would be a legacy into the future.

With scala, their is a sense of urgency coupled with a legitimate sense of eureka! But it all ends up looking like schizophrenic scribbling on a napkin to others.

Scala must limit the grammar in your programming language.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#126

Post by justthistime_ »

anon3_ wrote: post #125
justthistime_ wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did it bolt on? Where are the checks missing? The last major version and the next major version don't ship with any new feature at all, and removing some stuff, so it's a bit hard to see were you are coming from.

http://www.scala-lang.org/download/changelog.html Python has PEP's. C and C++ have a ISO standards body. JDK has JEP. Adding a new library feature, let alone overhauling core types, is something scala added as if it was no big deal. In python, when "new classes" were introduced, it was a big honking deal! You can bet it was heard about everywhere, in the documentation, etc. cpython interpreters like python 2.6 have s…

I'm not even sure which point you are trying to make.

Did you even read the link you posted? It supports what I said.

You keep writing walls of text which are either wrong or don't relate to the topic at hand. Many of the mistakes should be obvious to a person who has used Scala for more than 5 minutes, so I'm really wondering what's your issue here ...

Not liking Scala is perfectly fine. It's not necessary to make up claims (which don't hold up to 5 seconds of scrutiny).

Edit: Instead of editing you post trying to evoke a more emotional response from people, why not focus on correcting your false claims?

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#127

Post by marktangotango »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #57
marktangotango wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does 'market share' appear in my post? At no point do I make any claims on market share. Thanks for the charity[1] My intent was to imply that since jython is a python implementation, the language itself is more widely 'accepted'. Where accepted may mean "in general use and considered to be a good langauge". Groovy has been called a better java by some. Another example would be JRuby. [1] http://en.wikipedia.or…

Your post said groovy and jython had more "wide spread" acceptance than Scala, and I thought you meant market acceptance. It is a reasonable reading of your post. Your intended meaning requires a big leap in what side spread acceptance means, so I hope you can see the confusion.

It is patently absurd to claim jython or groovy have more marketshare (as you define accepatance). Thats where the principal charity kicks in and oneone might ppose since the claim seems absurd, perhaps the author meant something else. Perhaps the leap was too great, but i stand by it.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#128

Post by justthistime_ »

anon3_ wrote: post #125
justthistime_ wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did it bolt on? Where are the checks missing? The last major version and the next major version don't ship with any new feature at all, and removing some stuff, so it's a bit hard to see were you are coming from.

http://www.scala-lang.org/download/changelog.html Python has PEP's. C and C++ have a ISO standards body. JDK has JEP. Adding a new library feature, let alone overhauling core types, is something scala added as if it was no big deal. In python, when "new classes" were introduced, it was a big honking deal! You can bet it was heard about everywhere, in the documentation, etc. cpython interpreters like python 2.6 have s…

It's amazing that you keep doing edits which are literally begging for an emotional response, but couldn't manage to take a few minutes to check your claims against the reality.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#129

Post by nrinaudo »

lmm wrote: post #63
muraiki wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but every time I've asked a question in #scala I've received nothing but helpful and welcoming responses.

Most of the time that's what you'll get. But there are (or at least were when last I was there) two or three people who will respond unpleasantly, and I want to be honest about that.

Is this why I don't see you there anymore? This has in my opinion made #scala a markedly less pleasant place to hang out.

Re: Ask HN: Why do people have a hatred for Scala?

#130

Post by user1241320 »

facorreia wrote: post #89
lmm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XML is in the process of being demoted. spray-json is quite possibly the best JSON library I've ever seen, in any language.

I use play-json (on a Play Framework project) and it serves its purpose well.

We use both play-json and json4s. They're both pretty cool and easy to use
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