[majewsky]

> Scala is the only language that comes to mind with [the issue of needlessly reinvented fundamentals]

C/C++ is another example. There are a plethora of string types mostly tied to which base set of libraries you're using. If you're using the C++ stdlib, you have std::string. But if you're using Qt, you're using QByteArray and QString instead. And probably similar for GLib/GTK.

(Does std::string even have any encoding support yet? When I last used it, it was just a string of bytes without any encoding awareness.)