21–30 of 324 posts
To 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I do agree with you that there are times when 'full' type checking is inappropriate. Typing is a spectrum, and it's a bit of an art to decide how detailed of guarantees to give for your API.
I 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 pr…
I'll give an example of the power of Scala's type system. When I first convinced one of our founders to give Scala a try, he used it to write the first pass of our analytics service. He'd never written Scala before but once it compiled, it ran correctly on the first try, that's the power of its type system.
I 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 pr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That is hilarious. And I also hope your joking.
Slow build times complaint
> It is essentially impossible to practice TDD in Scala simply due to the time it takes to compile.
Hrmm, that's interesting, because it sure seems like other people are able to do this. I agree, the slow build times are annoying, but let's not exaggerate.
SBT critiques
>That punctuation-strewn build system I was forced to use was just taking advantage of Scala’s ridiculously flexible syntax.
Yeah, I get it, everyone makes fun of SBT's syntax.
Language is complicated
This is where it just kind of descends into whining about how 'hard' the language is. He claims javascript is a "simple" language. Does he just not count the weird edge cases when thinking about complexity?
Type inference complaint
> And this is the real death knell for Scala. Hindley-Milner Type Inference is a fantastic thing.... It’s enabled monads, which you want to be able to understand and then use in a type-free language.
WAT. I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.
>In my mind, Hindley-Milner was always the promise and the pay-off for Scala...I know this is the fault of the JVM’s use of type erasure. I don’t care.
O REALLY? Go on...
Maybe if this guy had cared enough to do a five second google he'd realize that Scala doesn't use hindley-milner type inference.
Bottom line is, I think I have a good understanding of the type of programmer this guy is, and it's exemplified nicely in this quote right here:
>Sure, with another couple hours we would have been able to figure it out… [but] We ended up copying and pasting the same four lines into all our endpoints. A dark moment.
For an intelligent critique of the scala langauge see here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1pjjy5/odersky_the_...
Note: It's been a while since I've seen traits, this might have changed for better.
To me Scala is essentially if Java, Haskell and C++ went to a wizard to have a child. The result is a magical mess. I seriously think that Scala has at least twice as many concepts as C++ and same if not greater number of really weird edge cases. I don't want to keep Scala in my mind, no more than I want to keep Necromicon.
I'm always interested to see intelligent criticisms of one of my choice languages. Let's take a look at what he has to say: Slow build times complaint > It is essentially impossible to practice TDD in Scala simply due to the time it takes to compile. Hrmm, that's interesting, because it sure seems like other people are able to do this. I agree, the slow build times are annoying, but let's not exaggerate. SBT critique…
I'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?
My belief though is that there is some peace of mind that comes from the idea of what you might call "page composition" -- that this piece of data sits in this template, that it rides on top of this simple model, that it is in ORM from database. There is a huge amount of linearity and convention throughout the stack and because of the dynamic nature of Ruby lots of gems can be sprinkled throughout without one really understanding what they do.
Now, I'm certain this level of abstraction and functional/mixin kindof stuff can be achieved in a Clojure framework but I think it is generally perceived as being a bit more non-linear and DIY (libraries not necessarily playing nicely together). As in "yes I can get all of these pieces together but then if down the line I have to change this piece, how will I accomplish it without breaking everything". Essentially, I think the perception of OO is more alluring in terms of project cohesion, whereas functional programming is seen more of a supposedly incorrect assumption that an HTML document is simply an assembled mass of text.
I'm really just trying to convey that RoR and the like seem to be making a COMPLETE ("in a few lines I can do anything short of my business's custom domain logic") framework out of the box and perhaps there is some stigma attached to the nature of Lisp that makes it seem as though framework developers are not striving to cross these bridges and there is less of a community to keep them in check.
Eh, I wish that made more sense but this is a lot of conjecture based on perceptions -- it's clear that a lot of these communities emerge from hype & reactionary values moreso than anything else. People wanted to shift away from PHP and be more productive without getting radically far away conceptually. I just got dizzy thinking about this lol... but yeah I think Java developers are a bit more open-minded when it comes to application development, seeing things more matter-of-factly than the languages with only MVC/Model2 kind of frameworks. I think if an attractively-packaged Clojure library were to emerge and get the right publicity (sad but thats how the web dev world is...) it could steal the hearts of many Java devs.
In my limited experience with Clojure it seems fun AND powerful. Yes there is a learning curve but that is to take it above and beyond. The simple functionality of most web apps could probably be achieved without writing anything too mind-bending.
Please do respond even if that response involves completely ignoring my rambling... I'm very curious to understand the Clojure community better :)