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Scala projects are difficult to maintain

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Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#171

Post by cmrdporcupine »

dehrmann wrote: post #141
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Scala needs to be treated something like how smart shops treat C++: there's so much there you can hang yourself with, so you need to define a subset/dialect and create a style guide and stick with it. This is how C++ has been successful at Google, and it's how I'd approach something like Scala if I were to go back to doing it now.

I don't disagree, but Java keeps adding features that make it closer to Scala, and Kotlin is well-supported and has cleaner syntax, so you have better choices than C++. The space between C and C++ is too fragmented, and too many of the languages are niche.

Yes, I haven't been in the Java world for almost 10 years now, so I can't comment too much on that, but it seems like Java improvements & Kotlin have vacuumed up the reasoning for using something like Scala. When I used it 12 years ago, the core Java language itself was terribly anemic.

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#172

Post by milesvp »

mumblemumble wrote: post #115
nowherebeen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This points to a culture problem more than the language itself though.

Interestingly, when we were working on the Java code, we didn't have this problem. Same people, same time, same git repository, different modules.

This doesn’t terribly surprise me. Community isn’t just the people but also the customs and idioms within the community. It’s probably similar to ‘code switching’ in verbal languages. People talk (and act) differently depending on who thay’re talking to.

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#173

Post by weatherlight »

didibus wrote: post #168
weatherlight wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a huge fan of the Java ecosystem. Clojure does look really nice and Diatomic looks pretty slick. Have you used Clojerl? https://github.com/clojerl/clojerl

When you take away Java, the JVM ecosystem is actually really nice. It's ok if you don't like it, I'm just saying, I used to think the same, but since taking on Clojure I've completely changed my mind, and find the Java ecosystem one of the best out there. Clojure's ecosystem is even better, it improves on the Java one a lot, simplifying most of the warts with the Java one, and like you've brought up, it goes beyond…

nice! i'll check it out!

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#174

Post by thu2111 »

hurril wrote: post #106
Akronymus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much a noob at FP in general: Wouldn't f# solve the FP and OO integration?

I did Scala for ten years and've been at it with F# for a year and a half now. I do miss some very powerful features of Scala such as HKT and "typeclasses" occasionally but overall it works very well. Sure, Scala is complex but I find that there are a few misunderstandings here. Java, for instance, _requires_ that you use a number of supporting tools for it to be useful these days. You need a container, you need quit…

Huh, I use Java all the time without containers. You definitely don't need them.

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#175

Post by dfgdghdf »

thinkharderdev wrote: post #111
tpetry wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the same feeling many years ago when i wanted to learn it. Bought the book of some the main creator (?) behind scala and started to read and experiment with on a weekend. But every chapter was filled with many completely different ways on how to solve something. In the end i decided that scala looks really great, but will be really problematic in a team if everything can be done on so many different styles. It lo…

I don't see this as a particularly bad problem in Scala tbh. Any language that is mature enough to be used for a large project will include many different ways of solving common problems. I'm old enough to remember listening to J2EE developers arguing endlessly about which GoF design patterns to use in which situations, usually resulting in using roughly all of them in one way or another so everyone could feel includ…

But with the old GoF debates all of those patterns were built on a very small set of primitives. In fact, that's why the patterns were necessary! Scala combines (at least) 2 major paradigms into one language.

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#176

Post by thu2111 »

devonkim wrote: post #167
tayo42 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a quick google search it looks like ts/js doesn't let you define custom operators like Scala does. Scalas implicit stuff is messy too. The original article mostly talked about libraries though

Scala's operator overloading and implicits are known sharp edges (and don't get me started on XML literals) but the article doesn't mention those as hindrances for maintainability. Package dependencies are not necessarily a language issue and become more about conventions of its community. Comparatively, people aren't complaining about dependency problems in the Clojure, Java, and even Kotlin communities because ever…

Lack of correct leadership.

Java, Kotlin, C# and TypeScript are led by companies that want usage. Scala was and still is primarily an academic exercise. Same problems as with Haskell - the leadership are paid to add random optimised-for-sounding-clever ideas to the language, not design a language in the gestalt that optimises for user success.

In particular TypeScript is not a research language and therefore the documentation, marketing, leadership etc doesn't strongly emphasise convoluted FP type theory. That means the sort of people who really want to go wild with that stuff stay away.

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#177

Post by gher-shyu3i »

blacktriangle wrote: post #80
anthonyskipper wrote: post #20

I 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…

I wouldn't blame the language, I'd blame the people who chose Scala. The impression I always had was that Scala was a research project into how various programming language features could live together and interact, hence their everything and the kitchen sink approach. From an academic point of view I think Scala was a huge success. That people chose to use Scala in production speaks more to how badly people hate Jav…

The ironic thing is, Java now has records (case classes in Scala) and pattern matching (fully fledged Scala-like pattern matching is in the works). It's better designed than Scala, and will be faster due to better integration with the JVM.

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#178

Post by gher-shyu3i »

nine_k wrote: post #121
foobarian wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent Javas made many QoL improvements to remove some of the complaints IMO. And there are more neat improvements coming (already there?) with 15 and 17.

Also, Kotlin is a rather nice and much less radical "better Java", well-supported, but mostly popular on mobile.

Pattern matching is (will be) better implemented in Java. It's fully fledged compared to Kotlin's implementation.

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#179

Post by thu2111 »

blackoil wrote: post #93

As an old pragmatic, I believe for a new startup language of choice must be Java/C#. * Stable, Well understood language. * Rich ecosystem. * Fast enough. * Plenty of developers to hire from. * Scales well to large projects. No other language/ecosystem ticks all the checkboxes.

Actually, Kotlin does. I know this because I did a startup and chose Kotlin for it a few months before the language hit 1.0 (bold move!).

The Kotlin ecosystem is the Java ecosystem. It runs as fast as Java, partly because Kotlin is basically (90%) a better syntax for Java. It scaled well as the project got bigger. And of course in the beginning nobody knew Kotlin but it didn't hold back hiring at all - you just take Java devs, tell them to read the language guide and they're 90% of the way to being Kotlin devs. Some code review to show them useful little tidbits in the stdlib and you're done. It wasn't a problem.

10/10 would use for a startup again (and will)

Re: Scala projects are difficult to maintain

#180

Post by valenterry »

dustingetz wrote: post #84

The problem is that functional programming is a really good idea but nobody has figured out (yet) the specific industry applications where it makes possible new things that weren't possible before. Mapreduce was a big win but you can do it in java. Spark was a big win but you can drive it from python. How do you make a better CRUD app in Scala? Serving http requests but with monads is not the answer.

You could say the same about OOP though. Just like FP, OOP doesn't make new things possible, it just makes some things much easier.
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