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by lihaoyi 600 days ago
Even in Java, because the language is relatively verbose, many frameworks fall back to an "inner platform" of magic annotations which have the same problem: e.g. just because you know how Java works doesnt mean your mind hasn't unloaded all the SpringBoot annotation semantics! But despite that it is worth it, because conciseness does matter.

Mill using Scala syntax is like that, but with the added advantage that even if you forget how Scala works, your IDE does not. You can really lean on Intellij or VScode to help you understand and navigate around a Mill build in a way that is beyond what is possible for most build tools: You can autocomplete things, peek at docs, navigate the build graph and module tree, etc. and learn what you need to learn without needing to reach for Google/ChatGPT. I use this ability heavily, and I hope others will enjoy these benefits as well