Language War - Scala versus Python
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Language War - Scala versus Python
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Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#2"And who the hell does Scala? (Actually, Twitter does!)"
Foursquare also uses Scala, as does LinkedIn. Here's a page of organizations using it:
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#3"And who the hell does Scala? (Actually, Twitter does!)" Foursquare also uses Scala, as does LinkedIn. Here's a page of organizations using it: http://www.scala-lang.org/node/1658
Good to see Scala's popularity. I mentioned only Twitter because I admire them :)
-Ashwin
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#4Novus Partners also does Scala. We've even got a few Python guys coding in Scala. It's just a language with the JVM ecosystem to back it up. Python has it's own ecosystem and for numerics, access to LAPACK and UBLAS is pretty awesome, I must admit. That said, both can exist fairly comfortably in a company and can be used for different purposes.
I like Python for prototyping, algorithm validation, and just to hack on. I like Scala for damned near everything else. (Also, Adam is going to be open sourcing what is essentially a Scala clone of Pandas but statically typed and with comparable performance.)
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#5"And who the hell does Scala? (Actually, Twitter does!)" Foursquare also uses Scala, as does LinkedIn. Here's a page of organizations using it: http://www.scala-lang.org/node/1658
This was done a few years ago. I'd love to hear what people have to say about Scala now that code bases have grown. Anyone working with a couple hundred thousand lines of Scala?
For instance, I know compilation performance was always frustrating for developers. What's it like for teams of people dealing with a large code base?
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#6The article's basis of the comparison for building an entire business seems to be very shallow.
Surely other considerations are more important, such as,
- encapsulation/domain partitioning
- messaging
- libraries and library maturity
- native code interoperability (likely critical for this application)
- concurrency
- performance
- JVM platform
- etc.
Maybe, as a result of this type of analysis, Python-like language is more suitable in some domains and a JVM language in others.
In my opinion, for the requirements quoted, with a deep and performant mathematical framework involved, I cannot envisage how Scala/JVM could win any "war" for the core of the business.
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#7The article's basis of the comparison for building an entire business seems to be very shallow. Surely other considerations are more important, such as, - encapsulation/domain partitioning - messaging - libraries and library maturity - native code interoperability (likely critical for this application) - concurrency - performance - JVM platform - etc. Maybe, as a result of this type of analysis, Python-like language…
A few more considerations will be posted in Part 2 of the post.
I appreciate your pointers - as the business grows and takes shape, a fresh evaluation will be required where some of the considerations you mention will be taken into account.
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#8I haven't tried Scala but since no one has mentioned it: Clojure is a pleasure to work with if you want a functional language in JVM.
I have no idea which and how many startups use Clojure, besides Datomic :) It would be interesting to know.
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#9No discussion of run-time characteristics? I realize for a some start-ups this is not the most important metric, but these guys sound like they might be compute bound. And faster language can mean cheaper/less hardware.
Scala vs Python: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?t...
Also since he mentioned Haskell at first, Haskell vs Scala: is also interesting: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?t...
Haskell vs Python is just for lolz: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?t...
Re: Language War - Scala versus Python
#10The article's basis of the comparison for building an entire business seems to be very shallow. Surely other considerations are more important, such as, - encapsulation/domain partitioning - messaging - libraries and library maturity - native code interoperability (likely critical for this application) - concurrency - performance - JVM platform - etc. Maybe, as a result of this type of analysis, Python-like language…
This kind of comparison reminds me about something similar about Git vs Mercurial:
http://importantshock.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/git-vs-mercur...
It looks more like an emotional kind of story than one about practical decisions.