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The Origins of Scala (2009)
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Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Among the clients of the Spark runtime architecture, Scala is the most popular language, followed by Python and Java. According to a recent survey by Databricks, the company behind Apache Spark, 71% of respondents reported using Scala for Spark development, while Python was used by 24% and Java by 5%. Another survey by Typesafe on the Spark ecosystem revealed that 88% of respondents used Scala, 44% used Java, and 22…
When is this from? I would be shocked if in 2025 most Spark was being written in Scala
August 2024 -- so, dated.. mea culpa
https://moldstud.com/articles/p-what-programming-languages-a...
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every significant language became multi-paradigm these days, but you can do it intentionally, like Scala, or you can do it badly.
Python is multi paradigm, but does several things really well that other ecosystems do not. Javascript as well. Java as well. What claim to fame does Scala have in this regard, aside from being the best supported language for Spark for several years before PySpark overtook it? Perhaps Akka before the boneheaded decision to paywall that ecosystem?
>> Every significant language became multi-paradigm these days, but you can do it intentionally, like Scala, or you can do it badly.
> Python is multi paradigm, but does several things really well that other ecosystems do not.
Both Perl and Ruby can be, and often are, used instead of Python to great success for similar concerns. IOW, the three are often Liskov substitutable[0].
> Javascript as well.
You're kidding, right?
> What claim to fame does Scala have in this regard ...
Scala supports declarative, generative, imperative, meta, and object-oriented paradigms. All of which are supported by at least, but not limited to, the JVM and JavaScript runtimes.
These capabilities transcend libraries (such as Akka) and/or frameworks (such as Spark).
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#34[dead]
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except when you chain many collection operations... then it breaks horribly.
Can you elaborate on what you're referring to? I can see performance becoming a problem if you repeatedly chain non-optimisable (in bytecode) as excluding the in place operations I believe all ops re-allocate the collection.
Ignore that person they don’t know what they’re talking about lol
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#36Scala is a great language, and functional programming (not pure functional) made me a much better programmer. And functional error handling is a fantastic way to model success and failure, whether you’re using Either or the newer Result type.
I have to both agree and disagree with some of the commenters here regarding why scala declined in usage. There are several reasons.
1. People just got fed up with the push toward pure FP and the complexity. Pure FP and category theory, and effect libraries are just not for the average audience.
2. Android support for Kotlin drastically reduced the momentum as well
3. Spark usage was pretty heavy driver for using Scala and I’m not sure about it’s used as much.
4. Scala became more and more niche as a result of item 1 above.
This being said, I switched to Kotlin for all server side work. I think a language and in particular the ecosystem, needs the vision/stewardship that can offer more practicality and balance in the language design, programming style, tooling, and frameworks. Kotlin just became a simpler language with better support for all of the above.
I can’t think of a better company to drive the development than Jetbrains. I don’t agree with all the choices, but Kotlin overall is a beautiful, simpler language, with all the practicality, and support needed to keep it going.
However, now that Java is making strides in the language features, as compared to historical improvements at the VM level, I’m curious to see how the market share for Kotlin outside of android is going to be affected.
Personally, I still prefer Kotlin for the practical FP support, Ktor as an HTTP server, and pretty good compatibility with Java. And lastly, I think there is enormous potential in multiplatform, as a strong alternative to typescript/react native for mobile.
Disclosure: I am biased as I’m developing some libraries and soon to be made (more) public server framework.
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#37Martin Odersky did a fantastic job with Scala then, and also with Scala 3 IMO from a language design perspective. When I first got into Scala, I was blown away by the language features and the type system. It was the reason I got back into the JVM and the reason for getting into functional programming (not pure FP).
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#38If you haven't checked Scala 3, give it a try. Its syntax is now Python-like (indentation based), although you can also use C style if you prefer.
And it's faster (or maybe my laptop is faster).
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#39Scala is a great language, and functional programming (not pure functional) made me a much better programmer. And functional error handling is a fantastic way to model success and failure, whether you’re using Either or the newer Result type. I have to both agree and disagree with some of the commenters here regarding why scala declined in usage. There are several reasons. 1. People just got fed up with the push towa…
1. There was never a push. Functional ecosystems are simply the ones that survived. You can't blame communities that keep the language alive for doing what they want, and not what you want. Without Typelevel and ZIO where would be Scala 3's adoption today?
2. Android has never been even remotely relevant to the space where Scala exists. And no, this was not a missed opportunity for the language. People who think Scala had a shot are completely delusional.
3. I'm personally convinced Spark was the worst thing that happened to the ecosystem as it brought a lot of attention, and indeed, drove adoption, only to result in an incredible amount of shitty code plagued by the worst annoyances in the JVM and big data space. Spark is the biggest open source project in Scala, yet Databricks doesn't seem to give a damn about the language and couldn't even be bothered shipping a Scala 2.13 runtime for years after its release. I sincerely hope Spark moves away from the JVM entirely.
Kotlin is really not any simpler especially with the constant feature creep that results in copying Scala features, only halfbaked. It's even less principled which is the biggest gripe against Scala having too many ways to do the same thing. There's nothing beautiful or practical about a language where people regularly write expression oriented code next to early returns.
Re: The Origins of Scala (2009)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
They really obliterated their momentum with how they went about Scala 3, unfortunately.
What really obliterated Scala’s momentum was PySpark overtaking Scala Spark coming from Python’s foothold in Data Science, columnar data warehouses carving out a big chunk of the batch processing pie as well, and then the Akka licensing change. The Enterprise ecosystem quickly withered away, and now only type level programming diehards remain.
Akka's demise started before the license change. It's an incredible piece of software but as it turns out, not so many people need stateful cluster sharding. Modern cloud architecture and simpler streaming libraries have made the Akka toolkit irrelevant to many use cases.
You're right about Spark and the next logical step will be removing the JVM from the equation entirely, which is already ongoing (see Photon or Comet).