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Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'

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

#21

Post by pjmlp »

cies wrote: post #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…

So you don't use type classes in Haskell?

Neither touch F# or OCaml.

Nor CLOS in Lisps.

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

#22

Post by pjmlp »

Avshalom wrote: post #4
noelwelsh wrote: post #2

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.

And even those have modern standards.

Object Cobol anyone?

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

#23

Post by virtualwhys »

matwood wrote: post #18

With the release of Java 8 I wonder if Scala is getting squeezed from both sides. Java 8 on one and Clojure on the other.

Unlikely, Clojure is very much its own thing, won't draw those that are drawn to Scala (rich type system, (G)ADTs, performance, etc.). That branch of potential adoption is minisicule anyway (even compared to Scala which relative to Java is itself tiny).

So, the elephant in the room is indeed Java 8. Will Scala at long last be killed? Perhaps, but highly unlikely, Scala lives and dies on its ecosystem (Akka, Play, Spark, Spire, Spray, etc.) which are seeing ever increasing enterprise adoption.

If anything Java 8 and the JVM improvements made and coming will aid all languages on the JVM that are different enough from Java 8+, which Scala, Ceylon, and of course, Clojure, are. The only JVM language made vulnerable by Java 8 is, IMO, Kotlin.

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

#24

Post by Avshalom »

pjmlp wrote: post #22
Avshalom wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And even those have modern standards. Object Cobol anyone?

Honestly i 'm just guessing on Fortran and COBOL. I wasn't there when they lost prominence. I just know that no other languages actually lost significant amounts of popularity for not changing (java? Its maybe less popular but calling it dead is not even wrong).

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

#25

Post by cokleisli »

cies wrote: post #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…

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

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

#26

Post by yogthos »

bubblicious wrote: post #5

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

I find Clojure to be one of the most scannable languages. The s-expression syntax gives you a visual representation of the relations between different pieces of code. When you see one expression nested inside another, you know they're related. You can tell what branching and relations are there by a quickly scanning the code and looking at the indentation. Having a bit more syntax than traditional Lisps helps break the code up visually as well. For example, things like bindings jump out immediately.

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

#27

Post by zak_mc_kracken »

Funny, when I read the headline, I thought this was referring to Paul Phillips saying that "Scala is unfixable" [1] in the other thread. He's also a Scala founder and he's also saying the language needs a fundamental rethink.

Interesting how the interpretation can vary.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8277626

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

#28

Post by cynicalkane »

pjmlp wrote: post #21
cies wrote: post #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…

So you don't use type classes in Haskell? Neither touch F# or OCaml. Nor CLOS in Lisps.

A major advantage of typeclass polymorphism vs dynamic polymorphism is that typeclasses enable parameteric polymorphism, and parameteric polymorphism enables reasoning that is lost if types can "pretend" to be a supertype.

For instance, in Haskell you can prove a functor instance has at most one implementation (if we disallow diverging values), uniquely given by fmap id === id. GHC can automatically derive it for you. If you have dynamic polymorphism this is lost because now you can have "nonuniform" functor instances that behave differently for different types while still satisfying the functor laws.

More generally, parameteric polymorphism eliminates a large number of "behavior surprises" that can lurk in OO code. And with existential types I never find myself missing dynamic polymorphism. Similarly, in Clojure, if I find myself using dynamic behavior, it's either to interact with Java or as a hacky version of parameteric behavior.

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

#29

Post by rch »

Avshalom wrote: post #4
noelwelsh wrote: post #2

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.

> Each new release of Delphi attempts to keep as much backwards compatibility as possible to allow developers to continue to use existing code without incompatibility of interfaces or functionality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_(programming_language)

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

#30

Post by jeffdavis »

Pacabel wrote: post #17
MetaCosm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well -- they have the Python 3 disaster to learn from... you can't break backwards compatibility for minor gains -- if you are going to break it -- break everything you must and make the new thing much better -- half measures in this regard suck.

It's really absurd when people call Python 3 a "disaster". There was nothing disastrous about it. In fact, hindsight shows us that it was actually a very good path to take. Python 3 didn't negatively affect Python 2 or earlier users. Their code still runs fine, and is well supported by a huge number of libraries. They weren't forced into upgrading against their will at any point. Python 3 allowed the Python developer…

"Compared to Perl 6, the Python 3 development process was perfection."

Comparing to a series of "Apocalypses" (the term used early in perl6 development to refer to radical breaking changes) is not great evidence that python3 is non-disasterous.

Do you really think python3 being 6 years in limbo (and counting) is a good thing? Probably not fatal, but I don't see how it's good.

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