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Language War - Scala versus Python

blog.zlemma.com

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Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#21

Post by cover_drive »

tikhonj wrote: post #16

I think you shouldn't have let people talk you out of using Haskell. It's a very nice language and has some advantages for this sort of project (at least based on your cursory description). However, its advantages are really not the important part. Rather, I just wish you wouldn't dismiss it immediately as a crazy choice. It's no more crazy than any other less-popular language. It has a reputation for being impractic…

Thanks for your support. Like I mentioned, I will circle back to Haskell as the business develops. If I was the only programmer in my startup, I would likely go with Haskell for important components of our software. But I have concerns about hiring a large team that would thrive in Haskell. One never knows - I'm keeping an open mind :)

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#22

Post by tikhonj »

wyqueshocec wrote: post #14

> Besides, dynamic typing scares the hell out of me Funny. I feel exactly the opposite. Static typing is false security. I program in JS. My coworkers in Java. They have so many bugs that make it to prod because they assume that just because it compiles it must therefore be safe.

Yeah, Java is not a fair example. It has a type system with the worst compromise between being awkward (and infamously verbose) and not very effective: it gets the short end of the stick on both accounts. It's better than C, granted, but that's saying nothing. It does not compare to a good type system like Scala's or especially Haskell's.

Good type systems can catch far more bugs than you imagine. Moreover, they can actually make writing code easier: there are some extremely valuable and expressive features like typeclasses that simply cannot be reproduced in a dynamically typed language.

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#23

Post by ajtulloch »

wyqueshocec wrote: post #14

> Besides, dynamic typing scares the hell out of me Funny. I feel exactly the opposite. Static typing is false security. I program in JS. My coworkers in Java. They have so many bugs that make it to prod because they assume that just because it compiles it must therefore be safe.

Well, it's not like type checking is a binary attribute of a language - for example, Haskell/ML have 'stronger' type systems than Java/C++.

In the former languages, you can encode many more attributes of a program into the type system, and so you can have check at compile-time many more invariants of your program - e.g. enforcing a function does no I/O, enforcing that all possibilities are handled when pattern matching, enforcing the equivalent of nullptr checking, etc.

In languages like C++, there are techniques you can apply to allow the type system to help you out a bit (see this talk by Jordan DeLong for some examples [1]), but in general, the guarantees you get from a non-HM type system are weaker than those from one, and so the notion of successfully passing type-checking is correspondingly weaker.

[1]: http://vimeo.com/55674014

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#25

Post by tikhonj »

cover_drive wrote: post #21
tikhonj wrote: post #16

I think you shouldn't have let people talk you out of using Haskell. It's a very nice language and has some advantages for this sort of project (at least based on your cursory description). However, its advantages are really not the important part. Rather, I just wish you wouldn't dismiss it immediately as a crazy choice. It's no more crazy than any other less-popular language. It has a reputation for being impractic…

Thanks for your support. Like I mentioned, I will circle back to Haskell as the business develops. If I was the only programmer in my startup, I would likely go with Haskell for important components of our software. But I have concerns about hiring a large team that would thrive in Haskell. One never knows - I'm keeping an open mind :)

Hmm, I'm not convinced that hiring a team of good developers for Scala is all that much harder than hiring good Haskell programmers. Haskell has a disproportionate number of very capable people interested in it, and from what I've heard acts as both a way to attract top developers and as something of a filter (at least in encouraging applicants to be more self-selected).

I think these effects cancel out Haskell's relative lack of popularity unless you expect to be hiring at the enterprise Java level--something like literally thousands of developers.

Anyhow, keeping an open mind is the most important thing, and you clearly have no problems there. I just wish others would follow suit in that regard.

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#26

Post by jerf »

cover_drive wrote: post #21
tikhonj wrote: post #16

I think you shouldn't have let people talk you out of using Haskell. It's a very nice language and has some advantages for this sort of project (at least based on your cursory description). However, its advantages are really not the important part. Rather, I just wish you wouldn't dismiss it immediately as a crazy choice. It's no more crazy than any other less-popular language. It has a reputation for being impractic…

Thanks for your support. Like I mentioned, I will circle back to Haskell as the business develops. If I was the only programmer in my startup, I would likely go with Haskell for important components of our software. But I have concerns about hiring a large team that would thrive in Haskell. One never knows - I'm keeping an open mind :)

"The core of ZLemma.com is a mathematical framework involving highly structured data representations and numerical algorithms."

You might also consider a Haskell core, surrounded by a Python website. (Or any other website language/framework you like.) It strikes me as likely you have some sort of relatively small interface you can define between those two things, and then you can use the strengths of everything.

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#27

Post by tmhedberg »

wyqueshocec wrote: post #14

> Besides, dynamic typing scares the hell out of me Funny. I feel exactly the opposite. Static typing is false security. I program in JS. My coworkers in Java. They have so many bugs that make it to prod because they assume that just because it compiles it must therefore be safe.

Not all static type systems are created equal. The sort of type checking provided by Java (and similar languages) provides far less safety than that of a full-fledged type-inferring language like Scala or Haskell.

I use Ruby and JavaScript professionally. I do like Ruby for a number of reasons, and JavaScript I can at least live with. But in both languages, I constantly find myself spending tons of time tracking down bugs that would have been discovered right away if I had Haskell's type system at my disposal.

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#28

Post by yxhuvud »

tikhonj wrote: post #22
wyqueshocec wrote: post #14

> Besides, dynamic typing scares the hell out of me Funny. I feel exactly the opposite. Static typing is false security. I program in JS. My coworkers in Java. They have so many bugs that make it to prod because they assume that just because it compiles it must therefore be safe.

Yeah, Java is not a fair example. It has a type system with the worst compromise between being awkward (and infamously verbose) and not very effective: it gets the short end of the stick on both accounts. It's better than C, granted, but that's saying nothing. It does not compare to a good type system like Scala's or especially Haskell's. Good type systems can catch far more bugs than you imagine. Moreover, they can…

You are totally missing the point of the parent. Just because types work out doesn't mean the behavior of the program is correct.

The problem is not how to make something compile, regardless of how complex the types are. The problem is how to do the right thing. It is not enough to return a string - you must return the correct string, and that is not normally not something a type can solve for you. I suppose you may solve that problem too in haskell, but then you will get bugs in the type definition instead. TANSTAAFL.

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#29

Post by rdouble »

tikhonj wrote: post #16

I think you shouldn't have let people talk you out of using Haskell. It's a very nice language and has some advantages for this sort of project (at least based on your cursory description). However, its advantages are really not the important part. Rather, I just wish you wouldn't dismiss it immediately as a crazy choice. It's no more crazy than any other less-popular language. It has a reputation for being impractic…

Haskell's syntax is weird compared to more popular languages. This is the main reason it's hard.

That said, It's a better choice than Scala for math. However, if the math is numerical algorithms, Python is better than either Haskell or Scala.

I'm not sure why they need to settle on one language. Seems like painting the bike shed. For better or worse, every sufficiently large web system has a number of languages being used behind the scenes.

Re: Language War - Scala versus Python

#30

Post by cover_drive »

jerf wrote: post #26
cover_drive wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your support. Like I mentioned, I will circle back to Haskell as the business develops. If I was the only programmer in my startup, I would likely go with Haskell for important components of our software. But I have concerns about hiring a large team that would thrive in Haskell. One never knows - I'm keeping an open mind :)

"The core of ZLemma.com is a mathematical framework involving highly structured data representations and numerical algorithms." You might also consider a Haskell core, surrounded by a Python website. (Or any other website language/framework you like.) It strikes me as likely you have some sort of relatively small interface you can define between those two things, and then you can use the strengths of everything.

I am with you on this. More on this in Part 2 of the post.
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