We are asking that anyone using Mahout as a lib or in the DSL-shell to learn Scala. While I still think it’s the right idea, user’s may disagree. We should probably either solicit comments or at least keep an eye on reactions to this. Spark took this route when the question was even more in doubt and so is at least partially supporting multiple bindings.
Not sure how far we want to carry this but we could supply Java bindings to the CLI-type things pretty easily. On May 26, 2014, at 2:43 PM, Dmitriy Lyubimov <[email protected]> wrote: Well, first, functional programming in java8 is about 2-3 years late to the scene. So the reasoning along the lines, hey, we already are using tool A, and now tool B is available which is almost as good as A, so let's migrate to B, is fallible. Tool B must demonstrate not just matching capabilities, but far superb, to justify cost of such migration. Second, as other pointed, java 8 doesn't really match scala, not yet anyway. One important feature of scala bindings work is proper operator overload (R-like DSL). That would not be possible to do in java 8, as it stands. Yes, as other pointed, it makes things concise, but most importantly, it also makes things operation-centric and eliminates nested calls pile-up. Third, as it stands today, it would also presentn a problem from the Spark integration point of view. Spark does have java bindings, but first, they are underdefined (you can check spark list for tons of postings about missing equivalent capability), and they are certainly not java-8-vetted. So java api in Spark for java 8 purposes, as it stands, is a moot point. There are also a number other goodies and clashes that exist -- use of scala collections vs. Java collections, clean functional type syntax, magic methods, partially defined functions, case class matchers, implicits, view and context bounds etc. Etc., all that sh$tload of acrobatics that comes actually very handy in existing implemetations and has no substitute in Java 8. On May 25, 2014 12:48 PM, "bandi shankar" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > I was just thinking , do we still need scala . Since in java 8 we have > all(probably) kind of feature provided by scala. > Since I am new to group , so just thinking why not to make mahout away > from scala. Is there any specific reason to adopt scala. > > Bandi >
