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Scala isn't fun anymore

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Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#221

Post by hocuspocus »

klibertp wrote: post #196
hocuspocus wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're vastly underestimating the amount of work required to support a platform like Android. How many people are directly employed by either JetBrains or Google to work on the Android + Kotlin story, vs the total number of Typesafe/Lightbend employees at its peak... which has always been burning through VC money and is financially struggling even after focusing on their core knowledge domain. > (Also, what d…

> I think you're vastly underestimating the amount of work required to support a platform like Android. That might be so, but you're not giving me a chance to change my view. I don't know, and don't care honestly, how many people are working on what; I'm asking what did those people do, specifically, that required such an immense amount of work, and what they have to show for that effort. And of course, how many peop…

I'm not going to try to explain why developing and maintaining tooling takes resources.

However, a few things:

- Lightbend isn't involved in Scala 3.

- Martin Odersky has taught students for decades and knows how to make Scala more accessible. He wasn't afraid of stirring controversy with new keywords and the brace-free syntax. He also has enough industry experience and connections to realize what matters for the ecosystem in the long run. Server middleware and big data frameworks are the perfect fit for Scala on the JVM. There's no evidence for some kind of missed opportunity between Android and Scala.

- Scala's standard library is rich, heavy, focused on immutability, and not always interoperable with Java's. Kotlin's standard library is very small and heavily inlined in comparison. On a mobile platform, this matters.

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#222

Post by bhuber »

svnpenn wrote: post #212
Test0129 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you? License requisition is a real pain, they have to be factored into the budget, depreciated, etc. If you can instead simply pull in OSS and hide it behind a SaaS implementation (thereby complying with licenses) you can leverage it to make money. I don't think Stallman saw this coming. Some companies do better than others. For example, FAANG level companies typically have teams that do give back. In some…

> pull in OSS and hide it behind a SaaS implementation (thereby complying with licenses) sorry, but you can do that shit anymore: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_License#Network_dep...

My interpretation of that clause is it applies to distributing code over a network. The most common example of this is serving javascript to a web browser. I'm pretty sure putting an API in front of a server that happens to run open source software doesn't count as "distribution", which is what we're talking about here with SAAS providers and Akka. If it does, then every site that is backed by servers running linux and not distributing their GPL license to clients is also in violation.

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#223

Post by therealdrag0 »

the_af wrote: post #174
JackFr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The biggest issue really is the tooling. SBT is simply awful. It's like they sat down and said "Maven has a bunch of problems. Let's fix none of them and introduce a few new ones."

Agreed. Maybe the situation has changed now, but it also didn't help that sbt's DSL is so inconsistent. Back 2 years ago, when I still used Scala, sbt had two ways to write build files, the "old" and "new" ways, both non-trivial except for the simplest cases, and when you were troubleshooting/debugging problems with your build, all the answers you found googling were for the other style (facepalm).

What kills me is IJ underlines all my sbt files in red.

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#224

Post by sp33der89 »

phillipcarter wrote: post #191
groby_b wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you click on the "Politics" tag (which the author has attached to the article...), you'll quickly learn why. They are a fan of free speech == unrestricted speech. Most larger ecosystems these days have a code of conduct, restricting some forms of expression if they are deemed detrimental to the community. Something that very much riles advocates of unrestricted speech. Often, having a code of conduct is conflated…

There's a lot of players involved in the Scala OSS drama. You can read about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/scala/comments/9a11p1/newbie_wonder... Suffice to say there's a lot of people at each others' throats, and it probably won't get better.

That thread is 4 years old...I wouldn't say that's reflective of the current situation, nor do I find "probably won't get better" a great take, because the Scala OSS situation tries to not-repeat-mistakes.

Hell the worst thing the Scala Discord deals with it are spambots!

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#225

Post by malcolmgreaves »

> but the ecosystem is essentially a microcosm of the US political landscape. I’m guessing all programming communities are turning to this nowadays. As an Eastern European, however, it kind of pisses me off.

Yikes! It's unbelievably exhausting to hear white folk say that they don't want to deal with the consequences of European colonialism.

Racism exists. You can either be anti-racist or pro-racist. There's no middle ground when everyone lives in a society that is built on the backs of hundreds of years of stolen labor in inhumane conditions. There's not _one part_ of modern, global society that isn't affected by racism.

Remember, it's an extreme privilege to look at a part _real life for the majority of people on the planet_ and say "it's just politics."

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#226

Post by ModernMech »

branko_d wrote: post #49
ctrlmeta wrote: post #11

> I’m also having affectionate memories of JavaScript and Python I am afraid, things are equally messy in JavaScript and Python too. "X language isn't fun anymore" is exactly how I feel about X = JavaScript, X = Python, X = C++, X = Java and many other languages. There was a time when I found Python and Js to be very fun languages. But recently the ecosystem has been becoming a mess. Build breakages on dependency upg…

”There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” - Bjarne Stroustrup

There are definitely languages that people complain about but which nobody uses. Hare was a good example of this most recently.

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#227

Post by afpx »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #56
the_duke wrote: post #24

The big takeaway here for me is that Akka has changed license to BSL. It's almost crazy to me that such a fundamental and widely used project would switch to such a restrictive license. Some more details here: https://coralogix.com/blog/akka-license-change/ > Lightbend are operating on a “per core” model, with their base license starting at $1995 per core (defined as a thread or vCPU) > The license is only enforced i…

2.6.19 will be forked and a community-driven Akka will emerge eventually.

Given that thousands of projects are dependent on it, I would hope so.

https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.typesafe.akka/akka-ac...

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#228

Post by hocuspocus »

atemerev wrote: post #181

Scala was fun before Typelevel broke the community. I liked Scala when it was a pragmatic, hybrid FP-OOP language, with a powerful actor model implementation. Now, OOP became a curse word, and if you do not do purely functional code with tagless-final and don’t know the definition of free monad by heart, you have no business writing Scala code (I like pure FP too, but if I want to write Haskell code, I can do it in H…

It's unfair to put that on Typelevel, but anyone can look up why it exists and judge for themselves.

However, Li Hayoi's libraries aren't a silver bullet. I could also argue something like "if I wanted to write exeception-throwing Java code, I can do it in Java." I use http4s/fs2/CE because of the better ergonomics, and I never needed to learn what a Free monad is.

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#229

Post by belfalas »

azemetre wrote: post #180
Test0129 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/08/open_source_biz_sick_... Here's an article on it. Their logic actually makes sense. Not that I support gouging customers, but when you consider how there are massive billion dollar companies with expensive lawyers figuring out how to end-around OSS (via SaaS, etc) this is the logical conclusion. A lot of companies make a lot of money on OSS and give little to nothing in return.…

If you’re making $25mil in revenue why is it out of the question to pay for licenses?

> If you’re making $25mil in revenue why is it out of the question to pay for licenses?

Turn it around: the kind of company that makes $25mil in revenue does so in part by figuring out what expenses it can negate or avoid. If they don't have to pay for licenses, they won't.

Completely hypothetical anecdote certainly not based on personal experience working in the Bay: an Ops director who saved 50% on MSFT server license costs by only paying for the servers in the DC acting as current primary. "They are not taking production traffic so they are not in use, ergo no need to pay."

As an engineer this logic may disgust you but it's the kind of thing that gets you promoted and 'in good' with "the business."

PS. It's a similar principal to your filthy rich relatives who are surly misers and share nothing with everyone. (And they have no sense of humor, too!)

Re: Scala isn't fun anymore

#230

Post by gorjusborg »

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #225

> but the ecosystem is essentially a microcosm of the US political landscape. I’m guessing all programming communities are turning to this nowadays. As an Eastern European, however, it kind of pisses me off. Yikes! It's unbelievably exhausting to hear white folk say that they don't want to deal with the consequences of European colonialism. Racism exists. You can either be anti-racist or pro-racist. There's no middle…

Uh,is he white? did he even mention race?

The fact you just immediately went rage mode before asking questions just proves his point.

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