Just shut up and use Java. It's fine.
And with Groovy as a scripting layer, it's more than fine. Quite good in fact.
Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
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Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#12Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does that actually work? Does that "type" basically compile down to an added n != 0 check at runtime, or is there more sophisticated dataflow analysis/theorem proving going on?
It depends. In the most general case, you have to prove that the program you have given has the type you have asserted. This is similar to proving a mathematical theorem. Generally, the computer will assist you in this endeavor--for example, if you want to prove that A implies B, and A and B are linear inequalities, this can be solved automatically.
Generally, the computer will assist you in this endeavor
Kinda. Let's be honest: in production this often turns into a pain in the ass. There's some value in dependent typing, but providing evidence that concatenating UTF-8 strings is associative is not one of them.
Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#14I've been using Scala just to learn Play framework (I know I could use Java but I thought I'd be adventurous).
I think in truth, though, if there were a web framework in Clojure as well received as Play I would be bounding down that path instead. Clojure seems to be where a lot of the JVM interested is heading yet we're not there yet for some reason.
Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#15I started learning Scala almost a year ago at my latest job - we use it for production systems at a large multinational investment bank.
Coming to Scala from experience including C, Java and Haskell, I intially found Scala quite difficult. It is true that there are some things in Scala that are not obvious to newcomers, and that are difficult to discover for yourself - such as the use of Implicits, and the strange precedence and binding rules for operator syntax.
That said, it doesn't take long to learn, and once you do, it all makes sense. There are other great languages out there (I'd say Haskell is one), but compared to for example Java, or one of the dynamically typed languages, Scala is superb.
Types, whilst not having the full H-M inference, are brilliant. That the author complains about having types rather than a simple map for keys shows a misunderstanding of what they are there for - the idea is to allow the compiler to prove at run-time what is valid code and what isn't. He comments that tests run too slowly in Scala (they don't - for our production systems building in SBT, a typical test run is significantly less than 10 seconds) but a lot of the time I don't even need to go that far - my IDE already highlights errors in the code as I type, where I have passed in incorrect or insufficient data.
Also, the author makes a strange comment that H-M 'enabled' Monads, and the comment is written in a way that implies that Scala does not have Monads. This is incorrect. Scala has monads, and the Scalaz library has huge support for Monadic programming. We use Monads and Applicative Functors (a close relative) daily to build high level abstractions, and we couldn't live without them. In Scala we say flatMap rather than bind (or >>=), but we mean the same thing. Although thanks to the same flexible method naming that the author complains about, you can in fact say >>= if you wish.
If you've only got a couple of days to use a language, and you're using it for a tiny project, then Scala is not for you. If want to learn a language that can make you vastly more productive whilst at the same time making your code safer and more robust, Scala is a very effective candidate. It's not the only candidate, but you should at least consider it.
Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#16To be honest with you, I use Scala as a better Java. Which means I still code imperatively (and use null instead of None) but with less noise (semi colons etc).
But, esp when working with collections, I take advantage of Scala's features. It's not perfect, but it works wonderfully. I can always revisit/refactor my code again later.
Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#17I think Scala is great as long as you stay on the road and not end up in the deep depths of academic hell (i.e. http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/01/covariance-and-contravari...).
I should say one thing however:
I'm using Scala because of Akka. An extremely powerful library that does a good job of hiding the complexities while still allowing you to be flexible.
Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
And with Groovy as a scripting layer, it's more than fine. Quite good in fact.
Is Grails as good as they say it is?
I think it may be but I came to the Java ecosystem to escape RoR.... it seems we should be able to do better than emulating Rails minus the existing gem community, no?
I have much more faith in the JVM but would like to see it provide a step beyond Rails rather than catching up. Play is nice because it is trying to accomplish this with Akka, though yes I see there are other issues. As mentioned in another comment, I'm kindof just wishing there was a cool Clojure framework. Maybe I will try one even there is not so much of a consensus as there are around these other emerging JVM frameworks...
Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#19I've been using Scala just to learn Play framework (I know I could use Java but I thought I'd be adventurous). I think in truth, though, if there were a web framework in Clojure as well received as Play I would be bounding down that path instead. Clojure seems to be where a lot of the JVM interested is heading yet we're not there yet for some reason.
I've been wondering - having never used a web framework except for some RoR - what people miss in the idiomatic Clojure way of doing web (composing libraries like Ring, Compojure, Enlive etc). Care to share?
Re: Scala – 1 Star – Would Not Program Again
#20To be honest with you, I use Scala as a better Java. Which means I still code imperatively (and use null instead of None) but with less noise (semi colons etc). But, esp when working with collections, I take advantage of Scala's features. It's not perfect, but it works wonderfully. I can always revisit/refactor my code again later.
None vs null has nothing to do with imperative/declarative programming.