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Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

blog.madhukaraphatak.com

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Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#111

Post by saryant »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #104
benburton wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no substantiative argument in this comment. > Scala, as a programming language, tries to incorporate too many concepts Too many concepts? Says who? How many concepts is too many? You don't have to use them all, and you can pick them up fairly easily as you go along; that's exactly how I learned the language. > while still trying to be typesafe. Not sure why that's contentious. > This makes the language comple…

> So what? You don't need to know all the concepts to be proficient Yes, you do. We heard this kind of argument with C++ twenty years ago. You can choose to ignore huge portions of the language for your personal use, but once you start working on a team, you will have to know the entire language.

No, you don't. I've been working on Scala project with a team mostly comprised of people who never used Scala before and who came from different programming backgrounds. We can and do ignore huge portions of the Scala language and ecosystem (no Scalaz, no type system hackery). At the same time, we still reap huge benefits from the parts of Scala we do use. Immutability by default, high-level parallelism/concurrency constructs, monads, typeclasses, etc.

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#112

Post by wes-exp »

humanrebar wrote: post #98
wes-exp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think WebOS was going to use JavaScript. The thing about Java and C++ is that they themselves are around for historical reasons. Far better languages have already been proven out. But, it will take a major industry player to move the masses forward on this. Apple's Swift effort gives hope on this.

> Far better languages have already been proven out For what they do, C and C++ don't really have serious challengers yet, not that there aren't some promising contenders.

When I say proven out, I don't mean in the sense of being widely used; I mean academically. In other words, I am trying to say that it's not a research problem, it's a problem of, say, engineering and marketing to bring it to reality. Cool language features are well established in academia (but tend not to go anywhere due to entrenchment and industry complacency – in that sense I would agree that they aren't 'proven').

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#113

Post by th3iedkid »

general_failure wrote: post #65

The article reeks of ignorance. Swift doesn't really have GC (but ARC) - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C5... . It also takes an unnecessary dig at nodejs. Has the author ever written node.js production code? What bugs has the author found and filed? I am sure most android devs rather have a major ramp up of the Android APIs rather than switching the programming language. The real problem w…

Adding more complexity to scala is its dependency on ASM for class file creation [1] and more refined performance options like tail-recursion [2] are implemented in a contrived fashion to make scala actually port to a non-standard JVM like dalvik .However if things were to change from ground-up like ARM actually made easy for functional programming.

These facts actually can make porting a performance application to scala quite a job!

[1]: http://lampwww.epfl.ch/~magarcia/ScalaCompilerCornerReloaded... [2]: http://blog.richdougherty.com/2009/04/tail-calls-tailrec-and...

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#114

Post by tormeh »

serge2k wrote: post #68
lmm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It unifies the type system, which gets one of the big headaches of Java out of the way. It has a generics system that makes a lot more sense (allowing covariant/contravariant types, rather than forcing use-site variance everywhere). Case classes are wonderful for making simple data classes easy to read (and write). Honestly Scala is all about solving the pain points with Java, so just look at anything that's been wri…

right, all nice to have things. Does it actually solve any real problems? Does it fix GC performance? Does it fix API issues? Does it remove the need for JNI bindings to native code? No?

1) GC: VM issue. Has nothing to do with language. 2) API: Google's responsible for the Android API's but Scala's standard library is definitely better than Java's. 3) JNI performance is a VM issue, again, and JNI interface is Google's problem.

These problems are not solvable by any language.

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#115

Post by tormeh »

wes-exp wrote: post #112
humanrebar wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Far better languages have already been proven out For what they do, C and C++ don't really have serious challengers yet, not that there aren't some promising contenders.

When I say proven out, I don't mean in the sense of being widely used; I mean academically. In other words, I am trying to say that it's not a research problem, it's a problem of, say, engineering and marketing to bring it to reality. Cool language features are well established in academia (but tend not to go anywhere due to entrenchment and industry complacency – in that sense I would agree that they aren't 'proven'…

If Google says "This is the second official lanuage for Android" I bet any adoption issues would go away a la Swift.

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#116

Post by frowaway001 »

DCKing wrote: post #101

Over the last few months I've been writing Scala full time, and have even written some (demo grade) Android apps in it. My opinion is: Android should not adopt Scala as one of its primary languages. I think a platform's primary language should be accessible. It is an unfortunate fact that the stuff that most people only know about programming using some object oriented imperative language. People find it harder to ho…

> If it isn't a popular widely known language (Java) it should at least resemble popular widely known languages (Swift). Give people a piece of Java or Swift code, and they can read it. Give people a piece of Scala code, and they usually cannot.

You realize that Swift not only resembles Scala syntax closely, but also adopts many of the same concepts?

Oh, right. Just the usual Scala bashing ... I think you have forgotten to mention C++.

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#117

Post by eklavya »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #99
eklavya wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What matrix are you using where Scala wouldn't make it in top 10? I would bet it would be one of the top choices.

All the various language surveys that have come up these past months (RedMonk, TIOBE, job boards, github popularity, etc...) put Scala in a distant #30-50 slot. Certainly not in the top 90% mainstream languages.

Please, let's be rational about this. A new language takes time to gain widespread use. Or are you telling me that Go, Scala, all account for nothing? We the developer community are in a transition phase. The advancements will become mainstream but it will take time.

Scala is picking up pace like anything. This has been visible to anyone following the Scala ecosystem. Not in just programmer circles, the bombardment of jobs for Scala developers in the enterprise suggests they are interested too.

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#118

Post by dragonwriter »

humanrebar wrote: post #98
wes-exp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think WebOS was going to use JavaScript. The thing about Java and C++ is that they themselves are around for historical reasons. Far better languages have already been proven out. But, it will take a major industry player to move the masses forward on this. Apple's Swift effort gives hope on this.

> Far better languages have already been proven out For what they do, C and C++ don't really have serious challengers yet, not that there aren't some promising contenders.

> For what they do, C and C++ don't really have serious challengers yet

Only if you define "what they do" in a way that makes that a trivial tautology (e.g., as "things for which C and C++ don;t really have serious challengers"). Over time, a lot of serious challengers have arisen and competed with (and even displaced) C and C++ in areas where those languages have been widely used. There may still be areas where they don't have serious competition, but those areas keep getting smaller.

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#119

Post by frowaway001 »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #99
eklavya wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What matrix are you using where Scala wouldn't make it in top 10? I would bet it would be one of the top choices.

All the various language surveys that have come up these past months (RedMonk, TIOBE, job boards, github popularity, etc...) put Scala in a distant #30-50 slot. Certainly not in the top 90% mainstream languages.

Number 14 on Redmonk.

http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2014/06/13/language-rankings-6-14...

"The next JVM language to learn" (Java-focused survey): Scala leads comfotably with 47%.

http://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/interview-with-typesafe-...

Apart from that, you are completely missing the context. People are not looking for a random language, but for a language which is compatible with Java and Android, allows gradual migration and protects existing investment.

Scala is the top-contender here.

Re: Google, it's time – We want Scala for Android

#120

Post by wes-exp »

tormeh wrote: post #115
wes-exp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say proven out, I don't mean in the sense of being widely used; I mean academically. In other words, I am trying to say that it's not a research problem, it's a problem of, say, engineering and marketing to bring it to reality. Cool language features are well established in academia (but tend not to go anywhere due to entrenchment and industry complacency – in that sense I would agree that they aren't 'proven'…

If Google says "This is the second official lanuage for Android" I bet any adoption issues would go away a la Swift.

Indeed. Developers look to Google to set an example, but it seems that Google itself is looking to developers to set an example. Hence we have a circular pattern of language adoption :) But it doesn't have to be that way.
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