> Scala libraries need to be cross compiled with different Scala versions.
This seems like a big turn off. Question to any Scala dev's out there. Does this get in the way? And does it make upgrading Scala versions difficult?
Scala projects are difficult to maintain
41–50 of 235 posts
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does rust have this issue? Anyone with experience?
I did a lot of Scala some years ago and also ended up in sort of a ragequit. Nowadays I'm mostly doing Rust or Swift. Rust, of course, has a steep learning curve due to the lifetime & borrowing system. However, the errors are usually very easy to understand. In the rare case where they aren't, it is easy enough to figure out what's wrong by searching for the error message. One of the Scala issues I had was that the e…
Yeah, it has gotten tremendously better in the last couple years when it comes to cryptic compiler errors. But even then Slick was a particularly egregious example. I had many WTF moments using Slick a few years back.
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#43I’ve seen lots of projects succeed in Scala, and I’ve seen some fail. The latter was usually caused by writing spaghetti code crap instead of language complexity itself. Obviously some programmers blamed the language, but the harsh reality is that competent engineers can make things work beautifully.
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#44Have you tried C++, Rust, Java or any other language? They all at some point in the development cycle become a maintenance nightmare. I will let you on a secret, we software developers create problems and then solve those problems. That is how software developer jobs are retained :)
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#45Scala has a Lisp-like quality in that I feel like I should love it. On a certain, 30,000-ft level, I do, but when I'm actually trying to solve a real problem I usually end up just doing it in Java and then "translating" it back into Scala.
> Scala has a Lisp-like quality in that I feel like I should love it.
This is the complete opposite of my experience.
I love Clojure because it enables me to build large / non-trivial applications after learning a minimal set of rules.
Scala, on the other hand, appears to have a relatively large number of syntax rules and special cases.
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#46> Scala libraries need to be cross compiled with different Scala versions. This seems like a big turn off. Question to any Scala dev's out there. Does this get in the way? And does it make upgrading Scala versions difficult?
Upgrading Spark from Scala 2.11 to Scala 2.12 was a huge effort. See here for more discussion: https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/spark-as-a-scala-gatew...
Some projects are easier to upgrade, but for complex projects, minor Scala version bumps can be quite challenging.
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#47Have you tried C++, Rust, Java or any other language? They all at some point in the development cycle become a maintenance nightmare. I will let you on a secret, we software developers create problems and then solve those problems. That is how software developer jobs are retained :)
They all have their tipping points. They don't all herd you toward that tipping point at the same pace.
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does rust have this issue? Anyone with experience?
I did a lot of Scala some years ago and also ended up in sort of a ragequit. Nowadays I'm mostly doing Rust or Swift. Rust, of course, has a steep learning curve due to the lifetime & borrowing system. However, the errors are usually very easy to understand. In the rare case where they aren't, it is easy enough to figure out what's wrong by searching for the error message. One of the Scala issues I had was that the e…
Yeah slicks errors were terrifying back in the days. They fixed both slick and scala to simply tell you which implicits were missing
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#49I had a startup that went all in on scala. By the time we realized we chose the wrong language it was too late. Complexity is the primary issue with the scala language... when the whole goal is to have a scalable language which in itself is diametrically opposed to simplicity, your language is dead on arrival. After using Scala, Go seemed like a dream come true. We really loved the integration of OO and FP, really mi…
Scala has its place... it's just not one that requires fast on-boarding (like a small startup where people constantly come and go). The success stories usually involve companies that are mature enough to spend time on design, training, and supervision (wix, for example)
Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain
#50I am really a beginner of both Scala and functional programming. I took the first Coursera course on Scala, and I got really frightened when I noticed that you can express many things in either the functional or in the object-oriented paradigm. One example is pattern matching vs. polymorphism. When you mix up those ideas throughout your code base, it might become really hard to understand.
This is just a thought that I had, and I wonder if that's actually a relevant issue in practice.