Brand new Scala-lang.org • Hacker News Board

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#21

Post by dinduks » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

girvo wrote: post #16

I recently installed Scala. I'm a PHP Dev, who plays around with Clojure on the side, but wants to be converted into the static typing camp. I also wanted to keep things functional (hence my love of Clojure, and my PHP code keeps things as immutable as possible), but also have a language that is usable if I were to go and get another programming job. Scala seemed a perfect fit. Until I looked at job boards for Brisba…

We use Scala and Play to build (almost) any sort of web applications. The main reasons IMO are type safety in the code, the templates and the routes. The actors model allows doing side processing pretty easily too. Not mentioning the elegance of Scala itself.

> Play as a framework looked very heavy for my usage

What do you exactly mean by heavy? Actually I think it's quite simple since you only have to download an archive, unzip it, and start writing code as you would in any MVC Web framework.

Spray.io is great for building API. It usually has better performance than Play.

Scalatra is Scala's Sinatra, but the compiling times take out all the joy in using this kind of frameworks.

Another Scala Web framework is Lift, but I don't know much about it.

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#22

Post by shadowfiend » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

kaoD wrote: post #11

rtpg wrote: post #2

Nice to see the language page be as easy on the eyes as the language itself. There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. On a related note, does anyone else see the Scala logo and confuse it for a symbol representing databases or hard disks? It just doesn't click with me

> There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. Well, there are many excuses. Scala is a messy language* and I have Clojure which IMHO is a better alternative for JVM development. I used both Scala and Clojure and settled with Clojure since it fits functional programming better. Scala is OOP with a bit of FP. Clojure if FP with OOP in case you need it desperately. * "messy" as in "let's th…

I would take some issue with that. I think if you see the dual goal of creating a very strong, pervasive type system and trying to maintain OO compatibility, the features that are “thrown in” make a great deal of sense as a cohesive whole. It's certainly a complex language, but there is a coherent vision behind the features it has, IMO.

That said, Scala certainly ain't perfect. It's certainly got its warts. And I'm not going to compare it to Clojure, as I haven't played with Clojure enough yet ;)

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#23

Post by namarkiv » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:55 PM UTC

kaoD wrote: post #11

rtpg wrote: post #2

Nice to see the language page be as easy on the eyes as the language itself. There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. On a related note, does anyone else see the Scala logo and confuse it for a symbol representing databases or hard disks? It just doesn't click with me

> There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. Well, there are many excuses. Scala is a messy language* and I have Clojure which IMHO is a better alternative for JVM development. I used both Scala and Clojure and settled with Clojure since it fits functional programming better. Scala is OOP with a bit of FP. Clojure if FP with OOP in case you need it desperately. * "messy" as in "let's th…

Coming from a haskell background, I found scala + scalaz fits all my needs. Is there a reason I should still try clojure?

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#24

Post by kaoD » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:59 PM UTC

namarkiv wrote: post #23

kaoD wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. Well, there are many excuses. Scala is a messy language* and I have Clojure which IMHO is a better alternative for JVM development. I used both Scala and Clojure and settled with Clojure since it fits functional programming better. Scala is OOP with a bit of FP. Clojure if FP with OOP in case you need it desperately. * "messy" as in "let's th…

Coming from a haskell background, I found scala + scalaz fits all my needs. Is there a reason I should still try clojure?

> Is there a reason I should still try clojure?

Probably not if you want to keep that Haskell background. I feel Lisp/Haskell have very different philosophies and you might not like Clojure's.

OTOH, stepping out of your comfort zone is always a great way to expand your views (even if you hate Clojure at the end).

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#25

Post by justinmk » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 4:00 PM UTC

The sbt site ( http://www.scala-sbt.org/ )is still impenetrable to anyone trying to understand wtf it does in under 15 minutes. (Why do I need this? How is it different than the scala compiler? Is it a package management system? Is it a REPL?)

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#26

Post by eropple » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 4:01 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

Nice to see the language page be as easy on the eyes as the language itself. There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. On a related note, does anyone else see the Scala logo and confuse it for a symbol representing databases or hard disks? It just doesn't click with me

There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM.

Lots of garbage generation. I like Scala a lot, but the space where I can really use it is smaller than I'd like. I do really like it and Play for one-offs, though.

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#27

Post by trailfox » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 4:03 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

Nice to see the language page be as easy on the eyes as the language itself. There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. On a related note, does anyone else see the Scala logo and confuse it for a symbol representing databases or hard disks? It just doesn't click with me

After learning and using Scala there is no way I would ever voluntarily choose to use Java over Scala. Simply put it's a better Java than Java.

I really like the new site design, not all that bothered about the logo. Maybe Scala needs a mascot too :)

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#28

Post by RyanZAG » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 4:04 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #2

Nice to see the language page be as easy on the eyes as the language itself. There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. On a related note, does anyone else see the Scala logo and confuse it for a symbol representing databases or hard disks? It just doesn't click with me

"There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM."

There is one incredibly good reason - possibly the most important reason. How easy is it to find a Scala developer if you need to expand your team compared to a Java developer?

I'd put it the other way around: what excuse do you have for spending more per developer? (There are some excuses here, but they're far from clear cut.)

In addition, Scala tends to run slower than Java which can have a further cost if you're scaling to many servers. Porting Java code to Android is also far easier than porting Scala code.

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#29

Post by zabcik » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 4:04 PM UTC

moondowner wrote: post #4

rtpg wrote: post #2

Nice to see the language page be as easy on the eyes as the language itself. There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. On a related note, does anyone else see the Scala logo and confuse it for a symbol representing databases or hard disks? It just doesn't click with me

The logo actually resembles the stairs @ EPFL :) https://secure.flickr.com/photos/gilles_dubochet/7327041044/

Except the logo goes the other way. That's a little infuriating.

Re: Brand new Scala-lang.org

#30

Post by fiatmoney » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 4:11 PM UTC

dinduks wrote: post #18

kaoD wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. Well, there are many excuses. Scala is a messy language* and I have Clojure which IMHO is a better alternative for JVM development. I used both Scala and Clojure and settled with Clojure since it fits functional programming better. Scala is OOP with a bit of FP. Clojure if FP with OOP in case you need it desperately. * "messy" as in "let's th…

Scala is statically typed while Clojure is dynamically typed. Comparing them is irrelevant. > There's almost no excuse not to use Scala if you're deploying on the JVM. s/deploying on the JVM/a Java developer/

It's a bit of a simplification to say that Clojure is dynamically typed - for instance, all of the builtin data structures conform to particular interfaces (for instance Seq) and operations over those abstractions are resolved statically. You can even make it into a parens-y Java with raw method calls, and tell it to warn you if it can't resolve a call statically (albeit you usually have to hint the initial input).

There's also things like protocols, and Typed Clojure.