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0 pointsrunT1ME8y ago0 comments

I work on a large Scala team. We use microservices so my regular compile times are somewhere between 4s and 20s. I rarely have to do a full rebuild.

IDE support is bad, that's a good criticism but a good chunk of us don't use IDEs, and instead write it like a dynamic language. Live inside the REPL, copy paste back and fourth.

As for 'subsets' everyone uses, I find this advantageous. Our team strongly encourages a pure functional style, but we realize not everyone is going to start out that way, and it doesn't get in the way of shipping software.

0 comments

thr0waway12398y ago

You might have actually convinced people to not consider Scala. You are saying, Scala is great, except for these small things:

1. Modify your codebase to use microservices

2. Modify your IDE habits to be more REPL friendly

3. Modify your team coding habits even if it makes it hard for one person to work on the other person's codebase.

runT1MEOP8y ago

I work with some larger Scala codebases too and the compile times are not that bad either. Maybe 30 seconds is more common for the large ones. Certainly not worse than C++, only a bit slower than Java.

>2. Modify your IDE habits to be more REPL friendly

Plenty of people use IDEs, I just think if that's what your main sticking point when picking a language, go with C#. It has the best IDE of any language.

>3. Modify your team coding habits even if it makes it hard for one person to work on the other person's codebase.

Nope, not a problem. I can work on any code base in the company. It's spooky how fast we can jump into others teams projects and contribute, and a lot of that is due to the power of the language.

whateveracct8y ago

Also, re: 1...you don't have to use microservices. You just need non-monolithic compilation units. This just means breaking up your application into library code that doesn't need re-compilation.

GF mentioned microservices because they end up forcing this by design, but nowhere does it say "you must use microservices or else get horrible compile times"

whateveracct8y ago

But the thing is if you modify your habits, it's so much more efficient than most other languages. It's reasonable to have to learn knew coding style when paradigm-shifting languages. Why isn't it reasonable for there to be other new behaviors as well?

mateuszf8y ago

Because there are other languages, which also provide the benefits, but without these downsides.

2 more replies

pkolaczk8y ago

Scala IDE support is bad? What IDE are you using? I find IDE support in IDEA almost on par with that of Java. It is very fast, has accurate error highlighting, very good smart autocomplete, understands advanced Scala features, supports most refactoring I care of, but most importantly works reliably.

cryptos8y ago

I've used IntelliJ for Scala some time and did encounter way more IDE bugs than in Java. I think JetBrains did a good job, but Scala is not engineered towards tool support. That is one big flaw of the language.

Kotlin is much more pagmatic (not only) in this regard, what is no surprise coming from a tool vendor.

pkolaczk8y ago

I also encountered way more IDE bugs in Scala than in Java. Actually during the full last year of development of a real-world commercial Scala project I encountered 0 bugs in Java and 2 bugs in Scala.

What about more objective measures? Scala plugin issue tracker: 11667 issues. Kotlin plugin issue tracker: 17664 issues.

And this difference is despite Scala being longer on the market and being more popular than Kotlin.

It looks like Scala IDE support is actually better than that of Kotlin.

1 more reply

icedchai8y ago

This was back in 2010-2011, so I am sure it has improved 6 years later.

Back then, most of the team was using Eclipse, which was awful! IntelliJ's support was better, even then... but still sluggish.

atemerev8y ago

IDE support with IntelliJ IDEA is now excellent, on par with Java and Kotlin. Everything just works, including automated refactoring and extractions.

apta8y ago

> We use microservices so my regular compile times are somewhere between 4s and 20s.

What framework or library are you using to write said services?

runT1MEOP8y ago

Scalaz, Http4 for web stuff, Netty/scalaz-stream otherwise. We really don't need "frameworks" to be insanely productive in Scala, just a few tried and true libraries. This also really helps when jumping into new projects, there's never "magic" beyond just the features the language provides.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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thr0waway12398y ago

You might have actually convinced people to not consider Scala. You are saying, Scala is great, except for these small things:

1. Modify your codebase to use microservices

2. Modify your IDE habits to be more REPL friendly

3. Modify your team coding habits even if it makes it hard for one person to work on the other person's codebase.

runT1MEOP8y ago

>2. Modify your IDE habits to be more REPL friendly

Plenty of people use IDEs, I just think if that's what your main sticking point when picking a language, go with C#. It has the best IDE of any language.

>3. Modify your team coding habits even if it makes it hard for one person to work on the other person's codebase.

Nope, not a problem. I can work on any code base in the company. It's spooky how fast we can jump into others teams projects and contribute, and a lot of that is due to the power of the language.

whateveracct8y ago

Also, re: 1...you don't have to use microservices. You just need non-monolithic compilation units. This just means breaking up your application into library code that doesn't need re-compilation.

GF mentioned microservices because they end up forcing this by design, but nowhere does it say "you must use microservices or else get horrible compile times"

whateveracct8y ago

mateuszf8y ago

Because there are other languages, which also provide the benefits, but without these downsides.

2 more replies

pkolaczk8y ago

cryptos8y ago

Kotlin is much more pagmatic (not only) in this regard, what is no surprise coming from a tool vendor.

pkolaczk8y ago

What about more objective measures? Scala plugin issue tracker: 11667 issues. Kotlin plugin issue tracker: 17664 issues.

And this difference is despite Scala being longer on the market and being more popular than Kotlin.

It looks like Scala IDE support is actually better than that of Kotlin.

1 more reply

icedchai8y ago

This was back in 2010-2011, so I am sure it has improved 6 years later.

Back then, most of the team was using Eclipse, which was awful! IntelliJ's support was better, even then... but still sluggish.

atemerev8y ago

IDE support with IntelliJ IDEA is now excellent, on par with Java and Kotlin. Everything just works, including automated refactoring and extractions.

apta8y ago

> We use microservices so my regular compile times are somewhere between 4s and 20s.

What framework or library are you using to write said services?

runT1MEOP8y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse