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Why Learn Scala in 2013?

blog.typesafe.com

41–50 of 75 posts

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#42
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix, Box.com, Nest.com, CloudPhysics, Quora, Simple, Klout More than 10: http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-startups-or-tech-companie...

Are you suggesting that the metric of how powerful a programming language is is the quantity of companies using it?

You're the only person in this thread who said the word 'powerful'.

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#43
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix, Box.com, Nest.com, CloudPhysics, Quora, Simple, Klout More than 10: http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-startups-or-tech-companie...

Are you suggesting that the metric of how powerful a programming language is is the quantity of companies using it?

He was asking: why should he learn Scala?

Getting hired by any of these companies can be a good enough reason for some.

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#44
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried IntelliJ, but the Scala plugin had a lot of bugs. Eclipse on the other hand is pretty good now: http://scala-ide.org/ Personally I find the SBT Scala file much simpler than a Maven XML.

As an former Eclipse user I had to switch to IntelliJ for the last 4 months and use it on a daily basis. I was very surprised how well the Scala plugin works. Excellent code completion, code search and refactoring options. I tried also Scala IDE in the Coursera Course and think the overall development experience of IntelliJ (with Java and Scala) is much better.

Is there some support for Maven, like generating Idea project from a pom file?

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#45
post #6
post #3

I've looked at Scala. I think it's really neat. I think it is Perl. And that's what scares me. You can solve the problem in many ways, each one getting more functional and abstract. Eventual so abstract that you can't really tell what going on. Another issue is the fact that it interacts with the JVM. Short answer, it seems nice, but if you're functional, you can't really use the 3rd party libs because you can't be s…

There's no limitation: you can use any 3rd party Java library from Scala. We do it in production for years, works perfectly. It's true that Scala DSL is scary. As far I know soon (version 2.10?) you will have to add a compiler flag to enable some scary stuff. They are useful for library developers, but not too great for everyday apps. Also you don't have to use the functional part. I saw plenty of code that looked li…

You're right. But functional adds a whole new layer of "safety". The functional developer will think, "My code is functional, share nothing, messaging passing goodness. I'm fine." As but some new developer, keen on Scala, but not thinking about the older 3rd parties, adds a call from his functional goodness to the non safe, side effecting code. This will introduce a subtle, hard to trace bug. As a result, I'm not a big fan of the "it's compatible with Java" hype around these VM languages.

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an former Eclipse user I had to switch to IntelliJ for the last 4 months and use it on a daily basis. I was very surprised how well the Scala plugin works. Excellent code completion, code search and refactoring options. I tried also Scala IDE in the Coursera Course and think the overall development experience of IntelliJ (with Java and Scala) is much better.

Is there some support for Maven, like generating Idea project from a pom file?

You can use the pom.xml as the IntelliJ project file, no need to process it into something else.

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#48

Can anyone explain in less than ten words why one should learn Scala in 2013?

My take on "Should I care about Scala?" question:

- If you're average or below average developer: the language does not matter. Focus on algorithms and read other people's code a lot.

- If you are using anything other than Java: consider testing Scala ( * ). You might learn great new ways of writing code, especially if you never used Functional Programming before.

- If you're above average developer programming in Java: you have to learn Scala now! Soon having "Java" on your resume without "Scala" will suggest "this person's skills are outdated" or "this is a junior developer".

( * ) I just put together a small starter project, no dependencies: https://github.com/csoma/Scala-starter

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#49
post #35

While I don't think _this_ article presents any compelling reasons to learn scala, you still should. If I had to list my reasons they would be 0. Of all the "new" languages Scala has the best selection of libraries and I think is the easiest to become instantly productive in. Languages like Rust and even to some extent Go are also really exciting and let you do great things, but the native library support isn't as ro…

  > I have ported 1K+ lines of C++ to 10 or 20
  > lines of Scala
I'm not doubting your claim, but as a general rule that sounds awfully steep. Maybe you got lucky (because whatever you wanted to do was a brilliant match for some standard library function or happened to be tailored to a uniquely "Scala-y" feature). In most cases of drastic code reductions upon language switch, however, it's one of two phenomena:

a) Rewrites are usually more succinct simply because you've done the legwork before; a second solution is almost bound to be more to the point.

b) One wasn't using the initial language properly.

Sure, going from C to Haskell may lead to insanely compressed code, but C++ in conjunction with its mature standard library, Boost, and the multitude of libraries available is such an advanced and excessively paradigm-spanning language that a reduction by not one but two orders of magnitude suggests a less than perfect first draft.

Re: Why Learn Scala in 2013?

#50
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix, Box.com, Nest.com, CloudPhysics, Quora, Simple, Klout More than 10: http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-startups-or-tech-companie...

Are you suggesting that the metric of how powerful a programming language is is the quantity of companies using it?

If you ask for an explanation in 10 words, you shouldn't complain when it doesn't address all your concerns.
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