Scala Native 0.3.7

https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/releases/tag/v0.3.7

by joshlemer • 8 years ago

77 52 8 years ago

dtech5• 8 years ago

I really like (and work in) Scala, and Scala native is an interesting project.

However, its use cases seem to be encroached on all fronts.

If you want native, performance and don't need the JVM ecosystem, Rust and go both take very different but good approaches to that problem. I would have a hard time recommending Scala Native over Rust.

If you want browsers, Javascript is rapidly evolving and becoming a better lanuage. Typescript adds an excellent type system given the constraints its working with. Webassembly opens the door to use your own favorite. I would have a hard time recommending Scala.js over Typescript.

If you want JVM, Java is adopting traditional Scala killer features at a glacial pace, lambda's in 8, pattern matching in 11+ [1], Data/Case classes in ? [2], but adopting them nonetheless. Kotlin has succesfully performed a Blitzkrieg maneuver on Scala's "better Java" territory and has full support from Google in Android. It's also much more approachable for Java devs. I have a hard time convincing JVM devs that Scala is a good choise over Kotlin. At the place I work in all new projects are Kotlin, and Scala is used for the projects that were started in it.

Python and R are mainstays in the data science world, with Spark serving as a sort of Scala bastion.

I like scala, and follow its developments and 3.0 (Dotty) version somewhat, but I am slowly seeing it dwindling into irrelevance.

[1] http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/305 [2] http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~briangoetz/amber/datum.html

nordsieck• 8 years ago

I've heard the standard C++ criticism that everyone programs in a different subset of the language leveled at Scala. How true do you think that is?

dtech5• 8 years ago

I have no experience with C++, so don't know how it compares.

There is some truth in the statement, in that a Scala team will often gradually adapt more advanced features of the language. I wouldn't call them different languages, but rather say Scala is a "Java N+5" in that sense. Java 8 is objectively much more advanced than Java 4, but it's very much the same language and a Java 4 dev will get used to and see value in Java 8's new features. Same with Scala .

The main schism is what some people jokingly call the "compiling Haskell with scalac" crowd. They are hardcore functional programmers who value FP ideals like category theory over all else. There even is a forked Scala compiler [1] (luckily the fork and mainline reconciled, and now every change in the fork is a PR for mainline). The crowd is mostly exemplified by libraries like ScalaZ [2] and to a lesser extent Cats [3] and shapeless [4]. Some even advocate replacing the whole Scala standard library with their own. Can you at that point still say you're using Scala? You can probably read that I do not personally like that style, and consider it a detriment to the community†, so consider my statements in light of that opinion.

The main reason why I don't like the style is that Scala is not powerful enough when compared to Haskell or Julia, requiring lots of magic and boilerplate to make it work. Maybe this will ultimately be resolved, as there have been gradual improvements over versions, and this will be the final niche Scala will occupy long-term, as I have not seen any contenders yet.

† I have tremendous respect for the maintainers of the library and their skills, but I don't think the schism is healthy.

[1] https://typelevel.org/scala/

[2] https://github.com/scalaz/scalaz

[3] https://github.com/typelevel/cats

[4] https://github.com/milessabin/shapeless

pjmlp6• 8 years ago

The irony is that can be applied to any multi-paradigm language, but since many are afraid of C++, only it gets the fame.

To pick on my favourite scripting language, Python, you can go from "I just learned to print hello world" style up to "look at me, master of meta-programming with multiple inheritance and dynamic code generation".

And this not counting all the changes that have happened throught all Python releases, with semantic impact how the code gets written.

Yet many assume it is a "simple" language.

jjtheblunt• 8 years ago

very true

ryenus• 8 years ago

And one can use Kotlin with Apache Spark, e.g.:

http://tomstechnicalblog.blogspot.hk/2016/11/using-kotlin-la...

pjmlp6• 8 years ago

I would also throw in Haskell and OCaml in the native front.

tytytytytytytyt7• 8 years ago

I would have a hard time recommending Scala Native over Rust.

Why? Scala is so much nicer.

I would have a hard time recommending Scala.js over Typescript.

For this too, Scala is so much nicer. The base libraries are far better than in both Rust and TS.

I have a hard time convincing JVM devs that Scala is a good choise over Kotlin. At the place I work in all new projects are Kotlin, and Scala is used for the projects that were started in it.

That sounds strange. I know Scala's got some warts and all, bit I still can't imagine Scala devs wanting to downgrade to Kotlin.

dtech5• 8 years ago

Rust

The type system is very good. Denys Shabalin is doing amazing work but Scala Native is still an early mostly 1-man project and not production ready, rust is a production-ready language with a large number of backers. The rust ecosystem is much larger than the Scala native ecosystem.

Typescript

Types solve my biggest gripe with Javascript. It's singleton and union type support is leagues ahead of Scala and Dotty and a decent patch for some of its omissions. It's a much closer fit to browsers. The ecosystem is gigantic. Frontend devs know Javascript, you can convince them to learn Typescript but not Scala and the ramp-up time on Typescript is super low.

Switching to Kotlin

The Scala devs aren't happy with it, but ultimately it's about the project not the language. It's mostly new hires and previous Java devs that have a negative impression of Scala and prefer Kotlin.

weego• 8 years ago

But as a commercial choice, the depth of available talent with JS experience vs Scala just makes Scala.js an absolute non-starter. Even if you found someone they will be potentially double the salary. So you're stuck cross training developers to write something they could have done anyway with less cognitive load.

I admire what scala.js is and I've dabbled with it for my startup for my own indulgence but it's window for viability is tiny.

drb91• 8 years ago

What makes scala "nicer"? Why is Kotlin a "downgrade"? Are you possibly just giving your opinion?

tanin4• 8 years ago

There's one case missing: Build a command-line tool with concise and maintainable code; Performance is not important.

Scala Native would win over Rust and Go, which are too low-level. Scala Native would win over python/ruby because of the ease of deployment (e.g. compile to target CPU) and static typing.

However, Crystal probably wins over Scala Native...

_lbaq• 8 years ago

Go is probably a winner for the time being for CLIs, just the fact that I can cross compile for 3 platforms with a very simple script makes it very attractive.

pnloyd• 8 years ago

I think that the Docker CLI bring written in go is some pretty big counter evidence to saying go is to low level to write CLIs. I can't think of a single reason that would be true.

pjmlp6• 8 years ago

I would rather use OCaml for it, there are even published books how to do those kind of tasks with OCaml.

https://ocaml.github.io/ocamlunix/

And it has an eco-system that goes all the way back to 1996.

eip2• 8 years ago

Kotlin == (Scala syntax) - (Scala power) + (Groovy wackness)

vorg• 8 years ago

Kotlin's the latest in a long series of leading alternative languages for the JVM, each having a turn taking second spot behind Java. First there was Beanshell adding syntactic shortcuts for property boilerplate, then Apache Groovy came adding closures, then Scala took the adoption lead adding full static typing and heavy functional capabilities, and now Kotlin's come into second JVM spot with simplicity by removing cruft. So think of Kotlin as "alternative JVM language Two point Oh".

tunesmith2• 8 years ago

Does Kotlin have anything approaching Akka or akka-streams?

eropple• 8 years ago

I mean...you can just use Akka in it.

cjcole• 8 years ago

Akka has a Java API:

https://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.0/java/index.html

Not sure about the relative ergonomics of Akka-in-Scala versus Akka-in-Kotlin (via the Java API).

AheadOfTime295• 8 years ago

dwindling into irrelevance

Scala won't be the next Java. However, _some_ Scala-like language will be the next Scala, probably EPFL Dotty [0] or Twitter Reasonable Scala [1] Short term, also Lightbend Scala is evolving (collections redesign [2], macros EOL [3])

Just upgrading existing Scala projects will keep most Scala devs employed.

[0] https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty

[1] https://github.com/twitter/rsc

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16461022

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16519366

lmm2• 8 years ago

I could never give up higher-kinded types: there are plenty of ad-hoc solutions to various effects, but a single reusable solution[1] means you can build up libraries that not only handle all the common effects, but your own custom ones as well. Even if you don't use them directly, you benefit from the ecosystem they make possible. Few other languages let you use something like treelog[2], fewer still let you fold a custom tree type while managing an effect as nicely as with matryoshka. Typeclass derivation is reflection done right, with compile-time safety and corresponding performance. I've never seen another language that made it so easy to put a database transaction boundary in exactly the right place but in a type-safe way so that you can never forget, or even have transactions implicitly applied to web endpoints that need them in a 100% statically-compile-time-checked way, because your endpoint routing is just plain old code (the way it is in akka-http[4] or rho[5]). Hell, even when it comes to something as basic as result types: Kotlin or Typescript can't do them (nicely) at all, and Rust's can't offer nice syntax without a macro (or a magic trait in newer versions of the language).

There are plenty of things wrong with Scala - in many ways I'd like to see a clean replacement - but now that I think in HKT I could never go back to a language that doesn't have them.

[1] http://philipnilsson.github.io/Badness10k/escaping-hell-with...

[2] https://github.com/lancewalton/treelog

[3] https://github.com/slamdata/matryoshka

[4] https://doc.akka.io/docs/akka-http/10.0.4/scala/http/introdu...

[5] https://github.com/http4s/rho

lobster_johnson2• 8 years ago

Out of interest, how will Scala Native work with projects like Apache Spark, which rely on shipping JARs around in order to run the same code on multiple nodes? Would you build "native" JARs containing object code?

logicfiction• 8 years ago

I don't think Scala Native would be a good fit with Apache Spark. Starting with their work in 2.0, the Spark framework already started doing things like working with sun.misc.Unsafe for direct memory control over certain operations. In general they put a lot of effort into getting as close to metal and hyper-optimizing the framework itself. Given that, trying to do the same yourself on top of that framework seems counter-intuitive in my opinion.

lobster_johnson2• 8 years ago

Surely a goal with Scala Native is performance and things like "direct memory control" (why else move away from the JVM?), which would very much dovetail with the work being put into Spark?

tunesmith2• 8 years ago

Had my first experience playing with Scala Native a couple of weeks ago, for hacking together a simple vote-counter (https://github.com/tunesmith/condorcet-counter) and am enjoying it just because I'm able to do all the scala goodness I want (test cases, types), while also be able to run it quickly from the shell.

I couldn't figure out the IntelliJ tooling, though, that's still lagging. I have to turn off the scala-native plugin to get the IDE to recognize the code, and then turn it back on whenever I want to generate the executable.

Scala Native 0.3.7

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