[gclaramunt]

If you consider Scala functional, I think it wins the popularity contest: used by startups and established companies (Linkedin, Twitter, Meetup, Verizon, Morgan Stanley, Autodesk, HuffPo, etc, etc...) and is not "we use it in a dark corner where nobody cares" and more like "betting the whole farm on it".

[michaelochurch]

I would "bet the whole farm" on Haskell before Scala.

That's not to make a dig at Scala. It's way better than Java. It's also really complicated, and the need for JVM compatibility is a big part of that. Then you have the compile speed issues, the problematic tool chain, and the fact that average Java programmers, given Scala, will create unmaintainable nightmares.

I'd use Scala over Haskell when I wanted JVM interoperability, or if I needed to train people up quickly. For a "bet the whole farm" play, existing programmer familiarity actually matters a bit less-- "the whole farm" is rarely bet on a one-month project-- and I'd pick Haskell first.

[gclaramunt]

Sure, I understand, for some orgs, betting on Haskell is the best choice. What I meant is that they're not using Scala in a small obscure project that nobody cares/know (as most early adoptions of languages are in big companies), they have a significant amount of code and their main business runs on it. (I'm not talking about the ideal case/what I would like, I'm talking about what I've observed in my bubble )

[justthistime_]

> Then you have the compile speed issues, the problematic tool chain [...]

Did you ever use Haskell? Those issues are far worse in Haskell than in Scala.

You just hear more people complaining about Scala, because it is used, while Haskell projects are usually not developed and maintained anymore after the author finishes his PhD.

[codygman]

> Did you ever use Haskell? Those issues are far worse in Haskell than in Scala.

I've used both, if anything Haskell is a little faster.

> You just hear more people complaining about Scala, because it is used, while Haskell projects are usually not developed and maintained anymore after the author finishes his PhD.

FUD. This is simply not true.

[michaelochurch]

Thank you for attacking that misconception. Haskell is, at this point, a very practical language, and becoming increasingly that way over time as it proves to have the best enforcement model for the functional style among the options out there. For good and bad, we're not in the 1990s anymore.

[justthistime_]

That gave me a good chuckle.

[dllthomas]

Does Scala have "compile speed issues" compared to Haskell? That's probably my biggest pain point using Haskell day-to-day.

[justthistime_]

No. Scala neither needs to compile dependencies, nor does it need to recompile everything on a change.

The first compile might take a bit, but after that all changes are usually incrementally compiled in less than a second.