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Scala Designer Martin Odersky On Next Steps

Posted by timothy on from the escallatio-isn't-just-for-lbj dept.

rfernand79 writes Infoworld has an interview with Martin Odersky, designer of Scala, in which they discuss the future of this popular language. Three versions are discussed as being part of the Scala roadmap: The first one (2.12) focuses on better integration with Java 8, and making use of the latest improvements in the JVM. The second one (Aida) focuses on cleaning up the Scala libraries. But the third one (Don Giovani) is about a fundamental rethink of Scala, with a strong focus on simplicity.

2 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Simple is good by pijokela · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been using scala for two years now and I think there is a simple trick to avoiding the problems you mention:

    1. Many of the language features are best left to library designers so that application code is easy to understand. This is not a problem unless you make it one.
    2. Carefully choose what libraries to use. Specifically avoid using all the esoteric stuff in github. Especially if the library is very "functional" and has lots of "operators". Just don't use them. Using Play and Akka and the stuff that typesafe uses I haven't really had too much trouble with migrations or code that is impossible to understand.

    And, coming from 10 years of Java, I am loving Scala development. :-)

  2. I see a train wreck ahead! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "But the third one (Don Giovani) is about a fundamental rethink of Scala, with a strong focus on simplicity"

    In other words, don't bother with Scala just yet since we haven't made up our minds about the syntax and will probably start all over.

    This isn't even taking into consideration the forking of syntax between Typesafe's Scala and Typelevel's Scala.

    I find it amusing when other JVM languages bash Java's baggage while they are young, but then they too get old and find out they created a bunch of baggage themselves. Let me know when you get that binary compatibility between versions of Scala figured out.