Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#1

Post by philippelh » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 3:44 PM UTC

Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes
scala-lang.org

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#2

Post by oelang » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 4:20 PM UTC

Is this the first mayor scala release that doesn't introduce a huge language or library change? Transitioning to 2.11 should be smooth, aside from some library deprecations not much has changed.

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#3

Post by ludicast » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 4:23 PM UTC

For me the most exciting part is that they are bringing in support for Java 8. Though lambdas don't impress anyone already using a functional language on the JVM, the introduction of Nashorn and the merger of JodaTime are pretty awesome.

Java 8 is the most exciting release since Java 2 in my opinion.

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#4

Post by film42 » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 4:26 PM UTC

Probably the best change in my opinion was resolving the arity limit for case classes: https://issues.scala-lang.org/browse/SI-7296

I've bumped up against that limit pretty bad while trying to deserialize json. Shapeless did a lot to solve the problem, but I'm sure glad that limit has been removed.

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#5

Post by frowaway001 » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

oelang wrote: post #2

Is this the first mayor scala release that doesn't introduce a huge language or library change? Transitioning to 2.11 should be smooth, aside from some library deprecations not much has changed.

There have not been any huge library/language changes since 2.8.

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#6

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 4:45 PM UTC

film42 wrote: post #4

Probably the best change in my opinion was resolving the arity limit for case classes: https://issues.scala-lang.org/browse/SI-7296 I've bumped up against that limit pretty bad while trying to deserialize json. Shapeless did a lot to solve the problem, but I'm sure glad that limit has been removed.

[deleted]

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#7

Post by adriaanm » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 4:54 PM UTC

frowaway001 wrote: post #5

oelang wrote: post #2

Is this the first mayor scala release that doesn't introduce a huge language or library change? Transitioning to 2.11 should be smooth, aside from some library deprecations not much has changed.

There have not been any huge library/language changes since 2.8.

To be fair, 2.10 introduced quite a few new features (my favorite being string interpolation). To name some more: implicit classes, value classes, language imports, reflection & macros,...

2.11 set the tone for the remainder of the 2.x cycle: smaller, faster, stabler. 2.12 will focus on Java 8 support and making it (even) easier to learn and use Scala.

We're also working on making the compiler a better platform for others to innovate on -- originally via compiler plugins, now using reflection & macros. A lot of cool stuff is happening outside core Scala, such as scala.js, and we hope to spur on that trend.

(I'm the Scala Tech Lead at Typesafe.)

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#8

Post by virtualwhys » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 4:56 PM UTC

Compared to 2.10 the 2.11 release is nothing special: some optimizations, bunch of bug fixes and deprecations (that hopefully lead to slash and burn of little used language features in 2.12).

Curious to test out build times in 2.11, sounds like some minor gains have been made there, and more to come in the 2.11 release cycle as the new scalac optimiser is integrated (http://magarciaepfl.github.io/scala/)

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#9

Post by ebiester » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

ludicast wrote: post #3

For me the most exciting part is that they are bringing in support for Java 8. Though lambdas don't impress anyone already using a functional language on the JVM, the introduction of Nashorn and the merger of JodaTime are pretty awesome. Java 8 is the most exciting release since Java 2 in my opinion.

I would say Java 5 instead. Even as poorly as Generics were implemented, it was a lot better than having nothing.

Re: Scala 2.11.0 Release Notes

#10

Post by ebiester » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

virtualwhys wrote: post #8

Compared to 2.10 the 2.11 release is nothing special: some optimizations, bunch of bug fixes and deprecations (that hopefully lead to slash and burn of little used language features in 2.12). Curious to test out build times in 2.11, sounds like some minor gains have been made there, and more to come in the 2.11 release cycle as the new scalac optimiser is integrated ( http://magarciaepfl.github.io/scala/ )

That's really exciting to me. (So is slash and burn, though.) Give me another two years of compiler improvements, bug fixes, and IDE/tooling improvements!