Comments for Software development and other things

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by Dave

Dave — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 03:12:19 +0000

Regarding point #2 – I think you mean that Java is a purely imperative language and that is the biggest difference between it and Scala. Scala is an OOP language through and through, but the diffence between the imperative and functional paradigm is the primary difference between Java and Scala.

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:48:52 +0000

I think you are 100% correct in regards to learning and investment of time. I would argue that is not necessarily true for any language switch (but it is the case with Scala or say C++.)

The counter argument here is this: Going forward on the JVM, we developers want a suite of languages ranging from scripting to something like Java. Functional is fine; it is not an issue as Clojure has proven.

To have this plentiful toolkit, we need focused languages that let us get things done and which do not demand a huge investment of time before they are used effectively. And no, Scala is not a Java replacement. Java is not cryptic.

Comment on Short book review: Functional Programming for Java Developers by Dean Wampler

Dean Wampler — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 19:51:16 +0000

Markus,

Thanks for the kind review. I’m glad you liked the book. Also, I’m glad you appreciate the fact that I had to omit a lot of material to keep it short

Dean Wampler

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by joe

joe — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:24:27 +0000

You don’t have to invest a lot of time to use scala effectively.
Using case classes, lesser typing for simple classes, tuples as return values and filter/map/ etc.. builtin collection classes actually make you more productive after 2 days of intensive reading/testing (repl!).
Tooling is now also there – finally!.
The only problem is java collection interoperability.
There are now unfortunately 2 ways to do this in the scala library.

The rest will follow.

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by yuem

yuem — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:29:50 +0000

if you want a simple and powerful language, try REBOL.

http://www.rebol.com

There is also another promising language RED

http://www.red-lang.org/2011/07/redsystem-goes-beta.html?m=0

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by Bruce Fancher

Bruce Fancher — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:38:42 +0000

I recently asked the author of a book on Scala to compare and contrast the experience of using Scala with the experience of using Clojure. He said that with Clojure, all the pain of the learning curve was up front, while with Scala, every time you thought you’d climbed the learning curve, you’d run into something that would drag you back down again.

Scala is a very impressive piece of engineering, but it’s just too damn complicated. Just learn and use Clojure instead. If you have any doubts about why you’d want to learn and use a Lisp, read Paul Graham.

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by Javier Ortiz

Javier Ortiz — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:26:54 +0000

Hopefully NetBeans takes advantage of the lack of cookbooks and do something with the plugin that is in the community hands right now…

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by Markus Jais

Markus Jais — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:40:16 +0000

@Kai: I agree about the IDE support. There is still room for improvement for the Eclipse plugin although I think it already is much better than it was about 6 months ago.

I also hope the Netbeans plugin continues too improve. It is not bad but not yet a match for the Java part.

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by Kai Wähner

Kai Wähner — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:36:16 +0000

Hey Markus,

great blog. I agree with all four points! Nevertheless, two more comments:

1) “When you use the subset of Scala that let’s you do with Scala what you can do with Java, it is not more difficult at all, probably even easier than Java.”

That may be true, but here your third point comes in: Not only blogs, but also most books use too complicated examples. Besides, you can look at code of open source projects. In Java, you could learn from such code, in Scala you do not understand anything (I tried this by myself when I started with Scala – I looked at Scala code of Apache Camel and did not understand any one code line).

It is very difficult to start as beginner due to stuff like own DSLs, several solutions for method syntax, and so on.

2) In my opinion, the killer argument against Scala still is the bad IDE support! Yes, IDEA works great in the meantime, but about 95 percent (I guess) use (or have to use) Eclipse in their enterprise projects – as I do. I hope that Odersky can speed up the development of the Scala Eclipse plugin even more…

Nevertheless, I really like Scala and hope that it will be used more in future projects!

Best regards,
Kai Wähner (Twitter: @KaiWaehner)

Comment on Why Scala seems difficult but really isn’t by Markus Jais

Markus Jais — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:47:38 +0000

@davenatx: I agree that Programming in Scala 2nd edition is an awesome book and I also agree that previous Java knowledge definitely helps. This is not a beginners book.
Cay Horstmann, author of the wonderful Core Java and Core JSF books is currently working on a book called “Scala for the Impatient” which is scheduled for November 2011 according to amazon.com. This probably will be a great to learn Scala once available.