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Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

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Re: Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

#3
What a confused interview. If the audience is for people who are interested in knowing scala's timeline then saying "isnt Java 8 functional now because it has lambdas" is either dumb or trying to be dumb on behalf of a java audience who doesnt care about the scala timeline.

Re: Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

#4

It's reassuring to see that the various groups working on Scala seem to have the same broad goal in mind. I also think it is important to not let the language ossify due to legacy -- which is the problem that kills many languages.

Outside of maybe Fortran and Cobol I can't think of anything that was A)alive enough to be killed B)killed by ossification.

Re: Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

#6

I'm really hoping that functional languages will evolve in a way that they become more readable at a glance.

Scala can be as readable or as unreadable as you like. Which is the problem with using Scala in a corporate environment, it can become a terrible weapon in the hands of a bad developer.

Re: Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

#7

What a confused interview. If the audience is for people who are interested in knowing scala's timeline then saying "isnt Java 8 functional now because it has lambdas" is either dumb or trying to be dumb on behalf of a java audience who doesnt care about the scala timeline.

Or "another language that's becoming popular, Node.js"

Re: Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

#8

I'm really hoping that functional languages will evolve in a way that they become more readable at a glance.

Scala can be as readable or as unreadable as you like. Which is the problem with using Scala in a corporate environment, it can become a terrible weapon in the hands of a bad developer.

You also have to decide whether to use scala as a functional language or as a better java. Each approach has its merits and drawbacks.

Re: Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

#9
"Essentially, the fusion of [functional and object-oriented programming] can have a power that neither of the two paradigms individually can have."

Very aligned with my opinion. I would add that having strong static type system with opt-in dynamic types system (syntax integrated) adds even more power (e.g. C#).

Re: Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

#10
> Essentially, the fusion of [functional and object-oriented programming] can have a power that neither of the two paradigms individually can have.

I tend to disagree. OOP can borrow some FP stuff (as we see with map/each/select/reject in Ruby for instance, or lambda's in Java); or to take it broader: imperative can borrow some from declarative.

But "fusing" the two will cause FP's ease-of-reasoning ("just functions and data structures") to be lost. On top of that, when using a strictly typed discipline (like Scala does), the types will become really messy.

So when it comes to FP, I like it pure-and-typed (a la Haskell), or untyped (like the Lisps), but not mixed-paradigm.

When it comes to OOP/imperative I like to mix in as much of FP/declarative as makes sense (like Ruby does for instance).

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