Responses intermixed.

Ed wrote:
> On Feb 13, 6:10 am, Robert Fischer <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>> Why does it have to be Clojure *or* Scala?  
> 
> Because (besides domain specific languages) this world cannot deal
> with more than one language at a time.  In the 70's it was C, the 80's
> it was [hold on to your keyboards] C++, then Java, now the world is
> thinking if C# only ran on *nix/Mac and variants we'd all be forced by
> employers to sling C#.  As soon as someone develops a compiler for
> JavaScript we'll all be forced to write JavaScript...since Web 2.0 is
> getting most of the press these days and everyone knows the trade rags
> don't lie.
> 
Are you being funny?  That's not true at all.  In order to even make the 
argument, you have to 
actively ignore shell scripts, FORTRAN, Perl, COBOL, AS/400, VB/VB.Net, and 
Java, all of which had 
wide adoption in the business sector while other languages were apparently 
dominant.  I'm sure I'm 
forgetting something, since I've only been actively engaged in the software 
business sector for 
about a decade, but those are the ones at the top of my head.

>> While Clojure no doubt has theoretical purity on its
>> side, Scala is far, far, FAAAAAAAAR more accessible to business-line 
>> developers.  
> 
> You are preaching to the choir here...the question that I cannot
> resolve is why not just use Java then; what value add in the business
> setting does Scala offer beyond Java?  Can't Java handle anything
> business requires?  In other words, *why* push/suffer to use Scala in
> the first place--other than to have a little fun?  At least in
> Clojure's case, I can take advantage of concurrency, something Java
> lacks.
>
Since Scala interoperates with Java, it's not an either/or with Scala, either.  
The advantages Scala 
offers is increased productivity through its multiparadigm nature and generally 
cleaning up some of 
the legacy aspects of Java (closures, people!).  It's also easier to adopt than 
Clojure, which is a 
much further departure from the current Java developer's skill set.

>> Once you push past types coming after the variables instead of before and 
>> some of the type notation nuances, the syntax
>> is actually quite like Java.  And, like Groovy, you can write Scala that 
>> looks very Java-esque and
>> then "Scala-ize" it.  So, from an adoption-path standpoint, Scala's 
>> definitely got the lead.  
> 
> No argument, but why adopt if Java v10...err...1.10 will do?  Java is
> not perfect, but will pretty much handle 99% of anything business can
> throw at it.  And for everything else there's COBOL and
> JavaScript...just kidding on that last point, but I think you get my
> point.
> 
Sure.  And C++ can handle 99% of anything business can throw at it, too.  But 
people still adopted 
Java.  And a major reason for that was because Java was accessible to C++ 
developers.  Which is 
exactly why I'd see Scala as a great intermediary language, even if the final 
goal was to get people 
onto Clojure.

~~ Robert Fischer.
Grails Training        http://GroovyMag.com/training
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