Scala-Revisited

Currently, I am evaluating Scala again and compare it to other popular jvm languages, like Groovy, or even Java. My Question is: Is there a room for such a complicated, yet extremely powerful language like scala?

Obviously, i am inclined to scream: "Yes, goddammit! Give it to me! My toy". Hm.. Maybe I am exaggerating a bit lately, as most people do when comparing competition products. I REALLY like scala.

However, when being an experienced programmer, it is easy to be emotional about the personal "favorite" language, but there are usual very good reasons why My fav is not everybody's else fav. There are dozens of good languages out there which no one really use, and one seriously has to ask: why? One example: Eiffel.

I guess one of the main aspects behind this is the momentum which the larger programming communities create (like Java), but that one is easy: If you give a good platform which everybody uses, you will soon have libraries which make the language more popular for everybody and so on and so on... Luckily, the jvm platform, like .NET, defeats this problem: Scala can use Java-Classes without any problems.

But.. That is not the problem of scala. Lately, I am reflecting more and more about the "complexity" of the language and what it means for the average programmer (like me). Speaking along the lines of Odersky, Java is a cathedral. It hides some features from the user which had been known for abuse and complexity which "burdens" the programmers. Scala, on the other hand, is a bazaar: It offers nearly everything a programmer could think of as a language construct (even implicits). Effectively, it makes the task of choosing the right tool for the job harder, as they are much more tools to choose from (operator overloading, closures, implicits). Also, one has to be wary that not all programmers in the team might want to use everything the bazaar offers.

The java's cathedral advantage is that the complexity is lower, the bazaars advantage is the flexibility - with the additional weight of deciding which goods from the bazaar are fine and help, and which will prove to be a burden which is better left out.

What about groovy? Well, groovy I see as Java's "sidekick" - It resembles its original pretty much but is tailored for the situations where java's cathedral's vision are not approiate to solve a problem elegantly. (And in time..) Its a kind of "special force" or "inquistion" for situations where features are important.

So... my next logical step will be to compare java/groovy vs scala. Not based on features but on the intention to find out which targets they are trying to achieve, and how.