The Rest of the Story (Yammer & Scala)

http://codahale.com/the-rest-of-the-story/

by pbreit • 15 years ago

198 60 15 years ago

jbellis• 15 years ago

"If someone asks me for an honest opinion of them or their work, in private, I feel morally compelled to be as honest as I can with them."

I can vouch for that. Around a year ago I asked him for feedback on Cassandra and his response was both thoughtful and helpful. I appreciated that a lot. Thanks, Coda.

djb_hackernews• 15 years ago

Is that response public?

johnx123-up• 15 years ago

Can you share that Cassandra feedback, please?

swah2• 15 years ago

He wouldn't say that in public because it would be harmful to the Scala community, but everyone who read it is very glad for having read it.

But if everyone thinks this way, those innovations will have one view on the web (where there is an image to care for) and another one of engineering departments, where people get real... and that sucks.

nosequel• 15 years ago

I think his point was that the original email was very particular to his use, and it might not have the same issues used by different people. So his public opinion of Scala wouldn't be him lying, it would be him generalizing it more. He was asked what the problems were so he answered. If it was a general post about the language, more care would have probably been given to point out both the negatives and positives. My .02 on how I read the various posts.

technomancy• 15 years ago

Obviously he took the time to write this post in such detail because he hopes that its intended recipients can take action to address the issues he raises.

It's not like there isn't already plenty of Scala bashing going around these days anyway.

soc88• 15 years ago

I think it is very constructive and I expect that improvements caused by it will land in trunk soon.

tptacek• 15 years ago

He's not even a little wrong about HN.

DanielRibeiro• 15 years ago

In HN's defense, the original email contains relevant information, and it should get attention. Of course, it has to be understand in context, as things change (specially after such thoughtful email) and not every app has the same constraints as the Yammer.

Not all of HN's discussion is keen on it, but often some of it has good signal.

orenmazor• 15 years ago

He's not. And so I laughed when I opened this thread and the highest rated comment was a java vs scala post. Rather than a reply to his thesis.

mhansen• 15 years ago

A Java vs Scala post is far more interesting to me than discussing the "shut up about the tools and just work" thesis.

CPlatypus• 15 years ago

He's not wrong, but at the same time I don't think anybody who so enjoys pissing contests on Twitter can afford to be too condescending about slapfights on HN. The last thing either place needs is more hipper-than-thou posturing.

castaside722• 15 years ago

Pompous. If you ever tried to use Yammer's "API" you wouldn't be asking this guy for an opinion on anything.

ShardPhoenix• 15 years ago

Why are the needs of the "Scala community" to save face more important than the truth?

parfe• 15 years ago

Evangelists sold a bills of goods to non-technical managers. Can't be letting something silly like facts or criticism get in the way of putting a pet language choice into production.

weego• 15 years ago

The reality of the Scala community is that most of the major players (the Typesafe side) prior to commercialising directly were hoping for some level of popular adoption with devs that would bubble up into startups/SME and for whatever reason that hasn't happened. So now they are banking on the idea they can sell directly into large enterprise space as a one size fits all approach that involves cross training developers (as there are very few out there due to the mentioned lack of adoption). This is pretty risky and needs momentum that can easily be killed by negative stories.

A lot in the original email is correct (I can't speak for the performance stuff as my skills are more webdev side of Scala), especially the way that libraries/OSS projects/sbt pan out. Something like Dispatch that is a fantastic tool and should be simple is a mess of functions-as-operators and poor to no documentation or examples to the point where for some things even reading the source code is not a lot of help. I'm not going to type out my thoughts on the shambles that was the sbt rewrite at 0.10+... just complete madness.

michaelochurch3• 15 years ago

Here's why I, personally, prefer to put all my investment into languages like Scala and Clojure.

Scala and Clojure, for their problems (which are not severe, but not to be ignored) have the advantage of being closer to the languages and approaches of the future, in which building comprehensible systems at very high levels of complexity/intellectual intricacy will be even more important relative to performance of executables. I expect that the problems of these languages (including performance) are going to become much less major over time, just as performance gaps between Java and C and between C and hand-written assembly have nearly disappeared.

Spending another 5 years in Java means you're preparing yourself for a 1996 job in 2016.

Why Scala and Clojure? Unfortunately, the 10-year forecasts for Haskell and Ocaml aren't great. I wish they were, because those are great languages. The reason: libraries and tooling matter, and they seem to be mattering more as the years pass (while differences in performance between languages narrow and matter less over time).

Hiring and talent: It's true that you can't hire 50 Scala programmers per month. On the other hand, most startups are far away from being in a position to hire 50 programmers per month at all, much less 50 good ones. Choosing an "esoteric" language works both ways. On one hand, it reduces the total pool of ready developers. On the other hand, I know companies that use Haskell and Ocaml and are able to hire 60-75% of their in-office interviewers while remaining selective; this would be impossible for a Java shop-- there are just too many unqualified Java developers. Choosing a language like Scala or Clojure will do a lot of the filtering for you.

brown9-2• 15 years ago

I don't see how someone writing Java in 2016 would be stuck in a 1996 job.

Is the same true of someone using C or C++ today?

michaelochurch3• 15 years ago

It depends what the person's using the language for. I'd say "no" for C.

C is still the leading language for a lot of purposes: operating systems, runtimes for higher-level languages, device drivers, and applications where tight control of memory use is important. In these domains, C hasn't been supplanted yet-- not even close.

I don't know that C++ and Java have substantial domains in which they're superior to other choices. C++ is a badly-conceived cross between C and high-level languages and Java is the worst of the JVM languages.

lmkg• 15 years ago

It's not so true for C and/or C++, because some of their niches are cutting-edge, like gaming and VMs.

Where it is true is for languages like Visual Basic, or heaven forbid COBOL. If you are working with COBOL today, or even ten years ago, you're probably maintaining a 1980's mainframe for a 1980's company (VB is probably 90's).

If I were to pull a prediction completely out of my ass, then my complete lack of experience or expertise in the matter says that Java is more likely to end up the VB of tomorrow than the C++ of tomorrow.

Harkins• 15 years ago

This post is not about Scala and/or Clojure vs. Java.

jmspring3• 15 years ago

Languages are but a tool to build things. What specifically about Scala and Clojure, do you feel, make them closer to the languages and the approaches of the future?

While one should keep abreast of current technologies (and languages), there is still plenty of work that requires knowledge of C from the system level to SAAS platform technologies and implementations. It is a 35+ year old language.

If your argument was "learn these knew languages for the advantages the provide given the likely emergence of X, Y or Z", I would buy it. Saying a newer language is a path to the future? Lacking.

harryh• 15 years ago

Functional programming more easily fosters the parallelism that will be required to keep making performance gains as individual core speeds top out and CPUs only get faster by adding cores.

socratic• 15 years ago

Do people think the hiring and talent argument holds water?

The more I hear this argument (e.g., from the "Python Paradox"), the less I buy it.

Is the theory that true "hackers" care more about the programming language syntax and semantics than whether it has the right libraries for the subject domain of the startup?

Is the theory that true "hackers" care more about whether the startup uses a new and un-tested programming language than traction, likelihood of success, money, or the actual problems being solved?

Do the best "hackers" come in by searching job sites for niche programming languages, rather than referrals?

Even ignoring the huge disadvantages in library support, tooling, community sizes, and so on, are the hiring and talent advantages believable? Are the sort of people who learn Haskell also the sort of people who would be 99th percentile C++ systems engineers for some reason?

jmspring3• 15 years ago

There are all sorts of people those that get their kicks on language selection and semantics, there are those that love to discuss process (agile, scrum, TDD, whatever), others that want to focus solely on delivery. Reality is, the best people are somewhere in the middle.

An engineer worth hiring is one that is bright, curious, and learns quickly. That said, they should also have an interest in some aspect of what you are producing. I, personally, have searched for jobs on the basis of esoteric / niche items, mainly hoping for something different. The most rewarding experiences have been where I've worked with/brought in good people and built cool things. One of those involved Windows Server and WinCE work, and I personally dislike working on Windows. But the overall project was interesting.

Technologies, languages, approach, and product. A good engineer who is interested will likely have deeper interests and help contribute in one of those four areas.

michaelochurch3• 15 years ago

I think it's this: the best programmers generally want to learn new languages and approaches. This means that by mid-career, they've been exposed to at least 5 languages and seriously used two or more. They've at least tried functional programming. Rarely is the general-case favorite, for such a person, C++ or Java.

Finding great programmers who know C++ and Java is not very hard. Finding great programmers who prefer those languages is quite difficult.

fleitz• 15 years ago

Startups are outliers, most of the metrics you mentioned for startups are at best noise and at worst cargo cult business.

The important thing is that people who are using esoteric languages more likely to try new and off the wall things that could lead to a new type of business. A new italian restaurant is not a startup, a restaurant that serves only dehydrated food might be.

If your startup serves italian food then you should probably go hire a bunch of java programmers the python paradox doesn't apply, and arguably most startups by number are serving italian food. (eg. your latest mobilesociallocal coupon startup). If you're truly doing something new then you're probably best off hiring people used to doing new things where there are no established best practices. (eg. trail blazers) You're most likely to find trail blazers on the trail rather than reading best practices docs.

The python paradox is about people not programming languages. (At least that's what I took from it) Also, there's nothing wrong with a new italian restaurant, on average it's probably going to be more successful than an dehydrated food establishment, but if you're looking to create a new nation-wide fad, you'll probably have more luck with dehydrated food than italian restaurants.

tomjen32• 15 years ago

I would certainly prefer a startup that uses non braindead languages.

If I were to code in Java all day I might as well get a more secure job with a real company.

Of course there is a slighting scale here -- I would still prefer interesting problems, great environments, vesting, etc.

But if I worked at Yammer now I would be pretty annoyed.

temphn2• 15 years ago

The 99th percentile C++ systems engineer uses C++ in their day job, likes it, and uses Haskell on the weekends for fun. They can also give you a detailed set of things Haskell needs to fix before it becomes more widely used (fast Mutable Maps among them).

sapphirecat• 15 years ago

> Is the theory that true "hackers" care more about the programming language syntax and semantics than whether it has the right libraries for the subject domain of the startup? Is the theory that true "hackers" care more about whether the startup uses a new and un-tested programming language than traction, likelihood of success, money, or the actual problems being solved?

As a basically useless anecdote... for random mucking around, I use whatever language sounds interesting. This has been Perl, Python, Forth, CL, Clojure, Ruby, and many others by now. (I used to consider myself a hacker, until I realized I wasn't working on any hard problems.)

But for real business, I'd choose something I know I can deliver with, which is pretty much Perl, C, or PHP for me. I've tried to extend this set by playing in Java and C# a few times, but the interest just isn't there. (Edit: I don't seem to have any problem delivering on boring problems in php, though.)

chc• 15 years ago

I think the idea is that enthusiastic hackers are more likely to try new and "weird" things than, say, somebody who learned a language in school, got a job at some BigCo that happened to be using that language, and spends their days sticking that language's libraries together with bubblegum and Popsicle sticks.

You'll probably filter out some good candidates, but people who make it through at least stand out from the crowd in some positive way.

lancepantz• 15 years ago

Who mentioned clojure?

gtani• 15 years ago

You may be missing a lot of what's happening with GHC: stacktraces, fixing GHCi and cabal, polymorphic kinds

http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/k4lc4/yesod_the_lim...

http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/mm68o/ghc_74_branch...

sandofsky• 15 years ago

"Spending another 5 years in Java means you're preparing yourself for a 1996 job in 2016."

In the type of environments where I work, five years experience shipping successful software will advance your career further than five years experience in one particular language.

If you choose a bleeding edge language, what is the risk you will spend time solving edge cases with the language instead of delivering great software? Given everyone's lack of experience in a language, what is the risk you will write something unmaintainable? If your bleeding edge runtime is slower, what is the risk that it will fall apart under load?

It's possible these are acceptable risks for the gains in programmer productivity. That risk to gain ratio would have to be massive to persuade me.

Yes, picking bleeding edge technology will filter out bozos during hiring. You'll also filter out engineers who are more passionate about shipping than new technology. You're left with an high concentration of engineers who have never seen bleeding edge technology blow up in their face.

nivertech• 15 years ago

I agree about Clojure, not so much about Scala. Clojure built on solid proven foundations of LISP and JVM. While Scala is also built on JVM, it's semantics are completely new and unproven. And b/c Scala's semantics are complex (unlike LISP), it will be very hard to prove and make it mature.

My other choice is Erlang/OTP, which is 20+ y/o dinosaur, controlled by Ericsson, not a modern language, but very stable and mature.

melling• 15 years ago

It's good to see honest evaluations of technologies. It helps people better decide when something is mature enough to adopt for their organization, and helps in avoiding the landmines when they do. It also lets the the "owners" know what is impeding adoption so they have better focus. Scala is several years old now and really is gaining adoption in larger (ie conservative) firms.

Scala is far from perfect and has some warts, but that's the type of technology that always seems to win. C++ vs Eiffel, Intel vs Motorola.

martingordon• 15 years ago

I'm curious to know why Yammer went with Scala to begin with (not to imply that it was a bad decision at the time).

Was it Language of the Week the week they started building Yammer? Were they trying to follow in Twitter's footsteps? Were they a bunch of Java developers looking for something better than Java? Did someone on the team have previous Scala experience?

Would Yammer be where it is today had they gone with Java (or another language, JVM or not)? Before running into the limitations described in the leaked email, was everyone happy with Scala?

castaside722• 15 years ago

Their whole product is a ripoff of Twitter so that was probably it.

foobarbazetc• 15 years ago

Not just Twitter. Twitter and Facebook combined.

headius• 15 years ago

I can appreciate that having a personal opinion about Scala's use in one particular context belched out into the world is unfortunate, but I have to say that Coda's email reads like my laundry list of concerns about Scala. I could have written this email just by theorizing about Scala's shortcomings based on my short time playing with it. Except in this case, it's correlated with real-world stories.

I like Scala, and I think it's the most powerful and flexible mainstream language available today. Unfortunately, that's the problem.

donjigweed• 15 years ago

Wow. If this is Charles Nutter I'm surprised no one has commented on this. I'm sure someone could make the argument that as there is ample evidence that humans are much less rational than we typically care to admit, that we are feeling animals who also happen to think rather than thinking animals who also happen to feel, so it is that the creator of what it is today easily the most popular non-Java JVM language could conceivably be "blinded" by their own personal investment in a "competing" language. But I think the much more interesting fact about this comment is that the commenter is basically a fucking programming god. And he thinks Scala is too complex. If I was Colebourne I would be posting on my blog, a very short post, basically just saying "Hey, all you bitches telling me 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, you wrote a little date library, WTF are you again?' Does Charles Nutter carry enough weight for you?"

My own personal viewpoint is that the Nutters and Colebournes are totally on the money. I remember reading a quote from Miguel DeAcaza talking about thread based concurrency programming models in the new N-core paradigm, he said it didn't scale, because "there are not enough PhDs in the world." Despite it's name, I don't think Martin's baby will in the end have lived up to it. Didn't scale, not enough PhDs in the world.

SWengineer• 15 years ago

Yammer using or not using Scala isn't going to make or break the language. Adoption seems to be ramping up in organisations of all sizes: http://thecodegeneral.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/scala-adoptio...

cfontes• 15 years ago

I am getting more and more tried about this kind of arguments, I am studding Scala and I like it, It can be right for some things and wrong for others, it's just another tool in my toolbox like Java, JavaScript, Ruby... You gotta have tools, and be able to choose between a Hammer and a screwdriver when needed, that's the real "Hacker"

rbxbx• 15 years ago

Can't help but upvote half the replies in this thread. Sometimes I forget how many ridiculously smart people hang out around here. Happy to be amongst you all, even as a generally passive participant.

jdefarge• 15 years ago

Coda's opinions, even if leaked, were highly appreciated. This guy has invested a lot of time on Scala so it's in better position to say what he thinks about the language. In the end, it should help to fix imperfections and help the community.

randysavage25• 15 years ago

I would like to see a time where JVM languages completely overshadow and remove Java from the scene, leaving only the VM itself as a requirement. It's a terribly depressing tool to use, and it's frustrating when I have to refer to it when using Scala or Clojure, particularly in I/O .

The Rest of the Story (Yammer & Scala)

Related Stories