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The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

scala-lang.org

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Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#31

Post by bachmeier »

betaby wrote: post #3

Why would the governments invest money on such a niche language? "Scala is widely used to build and operate essential systems across multiple industries." - very bold statement.

It wouldn't have to be used in very many places to justify a 377k investment. A few big European banks alone would be worth it. Their website says "we invest globally in the open software components that underpin Germany's and Europe's competitiveness and ability to innovate". The fact that Scala is used at a university could also be classified as innovation. This is a minor amount of money if you're going to compare it with a STEM or medical research grant.

Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#32

Post by bachmeier »

ActorNightly wrote: post #12
ForHackernews wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it niche? Scala is arguably the single most successful functional language. It interoperates with the whole JVM ecosystem. It's probably the #3 JVM language after Java and Kotlin. Spark is Scala, Twitter was (is?) Scala https://sysgears.com/articles/how-and-why-twitter-uses-scala...

Anything that runs on JVM should not be invested in.

There's also scala.js and Scala Native, even if the JVM is the primary platform.

Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#33

Post by mikert89 »

ecshafer wrote: post #23

Scala isn't as hot as it used to be. I think the rough Scala 2->3 transition, coupled with improvements in the base Java language, emergence of Kotlin + Android support, and popularity of Python in data science and data pipelines (lets just do everything in one language became popular) kind of made Scala not quite as popular as it could have been. Plus the long compile times are a pain. However it seems to have a rea…

Scala is too complicated. Most scala code bases I have worked on have no enforced structure, the language allows for all sorts of unconventional programming paradigms

Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#34

Post by dehrmann »

ForHackernews wrote: post #10
betaby wrote: post #3

Why would the governments invest money on such a niche language? "Scala is widely used to build and operate essential systems across multiple industries." - very bold statement.

Is it niche? Scala is arguably the single most successful functional language. It interoperates with the whole JVM ecosystem. It's probably the #3 JVM language after Java and Kotlin. Spark is Scala, Twitter was (is?) Scala https://sysgears.com/articles/how-and-why-twitter-uses-scala...

> Scala is arguably the single most successful functional language.

That would be Javascript.

Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#35

Post by Scubabear68 »

ecshafer wrote: post #23

Scala isn't as hot as it used to be. I think the rough Scala 2->3 transition, coupled with improvements in the base Java language, emergence of Kotlin + Android support, and popularity of Python in data science and data pipelines (lets just do everything in one language became popular) kind of made Scala not quite as popular as it could have been. Plus the long compile times are a pain. However it seems to have a rea…

You got it. Scala had a shot being an early mover in the JVM functional programming space, but they really shot themselves in the foot with their version transition problems and tooling issues you allude to. Java is probably "good enough" for most shops now, and if you are not bound to the JVM I really don't understand why you would go with Scala today.

Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#37

Post by brabel »

47282847 wrote: post #29

Is it really accurate to call this an “investment”? The details are not known but it looks like a grant or donation by a charity rather than an investment?

I think that any time to expect to get some benefit from it, other than a nice feeling for helping out, it should not be called a donation, at least not a charity donation.

Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#38

Post by rla3rd »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #35
ecshafer wrote: post #23

Scala isn't as hot as it used to be. I think the rough Scala 2->3 transition, coupled with improvements in the base Java language, emergence of Kotlin + Android support, and popularity of Python in data science and data pipelines (lets just do everything in one language became popular) kind of made Scala not quite as popular as it could have been. Plus the long compile times are a pain. However it seems to have a rea…

You got it. Scala had a shot being an early mover in the JVM functional programming space, but they really shot themselves in the foot with their version transition problems and tooling issues you allude to. Java is probably "good enough" for most shops now, and if you are not bound to the JVM I really don't understand why you would go with Scala today.

for spark

Re: The Sovereign Tech Fund invests in Scala

#40

Post by seanhunter »

oytis wrote: post #20
forgotpwd16 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scala may have fallen out of favor but was quite popular few years ago. And perhaps still is the most popular EU-designed language (developed by EPFL).

Python. Python is the most popular language designed in EU. EPFL is not even in EU

> EPFL is not even in EU

For people who don't get this, EPFL is the Swiss Federal Technical Institue in Lausanne. Switzerland isn't part of the EU or EEA but has instead integrated itself with the EU very closely via a mindboggling number of bilateral agreements with the EU members and the Schengen agreement which allows for free, borderless movement. This has the effect of making it seem very much like they are part of the EU without actually being as such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...

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