Martin Odersky - Simply Scala

Opening keynote
Scala lets us write beautifully simple code. It incurs very low boilerplate and does not restrict expression in arbitrary ways. Scala itself is also quite a simple language, with few constructs that compose well. On the other hand, Scala is often described as difficult.
I believe this criticism is not so much directed at the language itself but at certain libraries, frameworks and applications written in Scala. In my talk I want to raise this problem, and start a discussion how the Scala ecosystem can do better.
Slides : drive.google.c...

[@che5ari]

Always interesting to hear Martin Odersky's talks. I liked this one: "cats blows it out of the water..." at 15:59. Hit the nail on the head, so to speak. Scala as a language is a very fine language and like a lot of people I learnt it from the wonderful MOOCs given by Martin. The main gripe I've always had is the tooling around it. Martin of course mentions "sbt". In comparison, I can fire up vim or emacs and be very productive in C++, Rust, Haskell in pretty short order. Not so with Scala: there's sbt, bloop, metals and so on and they never quite work well together and something always ends up going wrong distracting from the main activity of writing code. Top notch tooling and less language features would have made Scala more successful IMHO.

[@draakisback]

Bro is sporting a cartier tank, absolute boss.

[@michaelthomson5125]

Great talk and it's nice to see Martin focus on simplicity. We just need to get everyone moved to Scala 3 ASAP so everyone can realise the benefits.

[@scosminv]

I loved the common sense and pragmatism. Will retry approaching Scala 3 again soon!

[@vasanthvel501]

Scala is fun

[@chillbro2275]

I'm hoping so.

[@DomainObject]

Funny how Martin equates pure FP with being complex. Taken to the extreme, absolutely yes it is complex. Any paradigm or approach is complex when taken to the extreme. However when used judiciously (especially using a functional core, imperative shell approach), I’d argue that it is much simpler than the alternatives.

[@RolfRochen-yb6sq]

Great talk, leading back to Scalas strength in combining functional AND imperative programming. Whereas Scala has been taken over more and more by the FP folks the last few years which I didn’t like because both worlds having their advantages and disadvantages. Great move with Caprese. I am really looking forward to it. 👍

[@user-kn4wt]

great talk! 👏

[@董亮亮-i2t]

Great talk

[@calebjosueruiztorres]

How do you guys came up with measuring the programming languages grammar size mentioned in the slide at [03:25]? Do you have the comparison including other programming languages like JavaScript, etc? Thanks!

[@keep_coding]

Most of the suggestions from this video simply means use Java or Kotlin :/ Most stuffs that I associate with Scala are being said as discouraged... Am I the only one?

[@draakisback]

Yes and no. He's saying to use context to determine when to use the higher abstractions, that you can write good code without having to overcomplicate things. Aka, some devs will use object oriented design regardless of the use case while others will use functional design regardless use case due to dogmatic reasons when in reality they should be picking the tool that works the best for the case.

[@TJ-hs1qm]

People went bananas with Scala early on. Most business requirements aren't very complex and pretty dull, but they still threw all sorts of advanced concepts at simple tasks just for the enjoyment of it and to gain knowledge. No one needs to learn Category Theory in order to understand something as simple as an http route. Yea many cool features utterly misused.

[@draakisback]

@@TJ-hs1qm that's the story of software in general. Overcomplicating a problem without having an adequate reason to do so.

[@richcaputo2929]

IMO he's trying to say that people are using Scala's properties to adhere to dogmatic principles which isn't necessary or a good idea. Coming from a mainly pythonic background, I always felt this way about Scala, but it has the ability to be very readable and elegant while preserving its functional ideologies.

[@Andreas-gh6is]

There is a good "awesome scala" list ... and it turns out most of the linked projects are abandoned. Scala is clearly on the way out, but you can still get jobs maintaining legacy. In Job listings Scala has really fallen behind, and most of the time I see it mentioned as an alternative, like "we use Python but we would hire someone with experience in Java, C# or Scala". For startups, Scala is a complete no-go. You won't be able to hire people, even though the job offerings are so scarce. Most people that know Scala prefer to work with something else these days, but that's not the folks you get listening to Odersky rant about other languages or how most of the Scala community is messing up Scala.

[@CalmHive]

lol, even the people creating the coding languages are copying and pasting stuff they don't understand from the web... 25:30

[@AbhishekVaid]

As someone who handled complex code in scala I can say that it's not a simple language. Not by a long shot. 1:38

[@encapsulatio]

And what programming language gives you the ergonomics of Scala 3 current features but in a way simpler language that composes those features with much simpler primitives? Also i doubt you actually watched the whole talk.

[@ZeZeBatata69]

@@encapsulatio Shut it fanboy.

[@CallistoPili]

there is a library in Scala3 specifically crafted for Hardware electronics design Chisel and SpinalHDL, the main challenge in Scala is to get something effective productive and manageable using high level testable description. Still evaluating how all of this can fit for an Electronic Engineer where the main focus is not writing software tout court.

[@chuckles2040]

martin should never be allowed to touch another programming language. Same thing with C++ bjarne. two professors that have no real world experience, creating PAIN in the industry.

[@paulfunigga]

I agree.

[@user-kn4wt]

😂