Scala Native v0.1

#1

Post by zepolud » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 1:27 PM UTC

Scala Native v0.1
scala-lang.org

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#2

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:43 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#3

Post by gbersac » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:44 PM UTC

That's a great news ! We are exclusively using scala at work for back end and I wonder if it could be interesting to switch new projects to scala native.

Did you test scala native against well known and massive open source scala project ? Did the performance improved or regress ? Did you wrote a brand new scala compiler for native code ?

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#4

Post by sreque » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:47 PM UTC

gbersac wrote: post #3

That's a great news ! We are exclusively using scala at work for back end and I wonder if it could be interesting to switch new projects to scala native. Did you test scala native against well known and massive open source scala project ? Did the performance improved or regress ? Did you wrote a brand new scala compiler for native code ?

I'm not involved with this project in any way, but I would expect performance to be overall worse with Scala Native. The advantages of Scala native are likely:

1) Much faster startup times

2) smaller memory footprint for small programs.

3) Potential for easier installation since no dependency on the JDK (assuming binaries are statically linked)

So basically you could use scala native to cover some cases that are better covered by golang or rust right now. For large and long-running server-side processes, the JVM is still king.

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#5

Post by therealmarv » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

gbersac wrote: post #3

That's a great news ! We are exclusively using scala at work for back end and I wonder if it could be interesting to switch new projects to scala native. Did you test scala native against well known and massive open source scala project ? Did the performance improved or regress ? Did you wrote a brand new scala compiler for native code ?

Never touch a running system ;) Scala on JVM is much more tested than the new shiny thing. Also don't expect improved performance... many people think that the JVM is bloated and makes programs slower (this is mostly not true). The downsides of the JVM are more memory consumption/footprint (when you have e.g. small servers or micro instances) and the cold startup time of the JVM itself (which is not relevant on a server in comparison to desktop Java apps). Would be interested to hear if any backend Scala projects like e.g. Play work on Scala Native.

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#6

Post by LeanderK » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

Is Scala Native GCed?

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#7

Post by merb » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

LeanderK wrote: post #6

Is Scala Native GCed?

yes (https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/issues/128)

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#8

Post by wst_ » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:58 PM UTC

Somewhat relevant: https://blog.plan99.net/kotlin-native-310ffac94af2#.ijzik0jx...

Title says Kotlin, but it is about JVM languages going native, in general. Or should they?

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#9

Post by zerr » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:58 PM UTC

LeanderK wrote: post #6

Is Scala Native GCed?

Should be, because Scala doesn't have strong vs weak reference distinction.

Re: Scala Native v0.1

#10

Post by LeanderK » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 2:59 PM UTC

gbersac wrote: post #3

That's a great news ! We are exclusively using scala at work for back end and I wonder if it could be interesting to switch new projects to scala native. Did you test scala native against well known and massive open source scala project ? Did the performance improved or regress ? Did you wrote a brand new scala compiler for native code ?

I think for Server-Application Scala on the JVM will probably beat Scala-Native. The benefits of Scala-Native over Scala JVM are:

   - faster startup time
   - (drastically) lower memory footprint
   - fine hand-tuning of you application

All these things are not super important in server-applications. For example Java trades memory for throughput (higher memory footprint, but also higher throughput. These usually go hand in hand.).