The Sovereign Tech Fund Invests in Scala
71 points
6 hours ago
| 9 comments
| scala-lang.org
| HN
ecshafer
2 hours ago
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Scala isn't as hot as it used to be. I think the rough Scala 2->3 transition, coupled with improvements in the base Java language, emergence of Kotlin + Android support, and popularity of Python in data science and data pipelines (lets just do everything in one language became popular) kind of made Scala not quite as popular as it could have been. Plus the long compile times are a pain. However it seems to have a really high coolness ratio for a language. The few jobs I do see in Scala are very cool looking. Very few boring looking jobs.
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mikert89
1 hour ago
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Scala is too complicated. Most scala code bases I have worked on have no enforced structure, the language allows for all sorts of unconventional programming paradigms
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frakt0x90
29 minutes ago
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This is exactly what turned me off. It supports so many paradigms that every line of code I wrote I had to sit and think if I was doing it the "right" way and it was miserable.
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packetlost
31 minutes ago
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That's sorta the curse of Lisps too.
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Scubabear68
1 hour ago
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You got it. Scala had a shot being an early mover in the JVM functional programming space, but they really shot themselves in the foot with their version transition problems and tooling issues you allude to. Java is probably "good enough" for most shops now, and if you are not bound to the JVM I really don't understand why you would go with Scala today.
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hocuspocus
1 hour ago
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Scala's decline started before Scala 3, which brought its share of breakage (sometimes for dubious reasons, like the new syntax) but also fixed many warts. Tooling has improved a lot lately, but it's too late.

> if you are not bound to the JVM I really don't understand why you would go with Scala today.

Scala's metaprogramming abilities coupled to a powerful type system are still unmatched. Among mainstream languages, only TypeScript gets somewhat close. For your typical service oriented architecture, libraries such as Tapir or ZIO HTTP are pretty nice. I haven't found anything as pleasant in other languages.

That said if an LLM can write 95% of your code today, this point is a bit moot, sadly.

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rla3rd
1 hour ago
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for spark
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sh3rl0ck
2 hours ago
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What would you categorise as a "cool looking job"?
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ecshafer
42 minutes ago
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Jobs that you work on hard, complicated things. Scala is relatively popular in Fintech and Finance in general. There's things like Chisel or Spark. But there are relatively few simple CRUD app companies using Scala.
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nish__
3 hours ago
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I learned recently that one of the killer apps for Scala seems to be in hardware design. Chisel [0] is the core technology of the best open source RISC-V chips. Chipyard [1] is designing leading edge type OOE and AI chips and all of the code is written in Scala. Personally, I can't wait for some of these designs to start being mass produced and put in laptops and phones.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisel_(programming_language)

[1] https://github.com/ucb-bar/chipyard

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abeppu
3 hours ago
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So, as a justification for support of scala, the thing that seems lacking to me is that Chisel seems to still be centered around scala 2? E.g. their recommended template for getting started still uses scala 2 ... so without support to motivate them to use scala 3, it's not obvious that Chisel benefits much from current work on the scala language? I have not fully understood the Chisel project but I see they have a "compiler plugin" which suggests to me that moving fully off scala 2 requires a meaningful redesign.

https://github.com/chipsalliance/chisel-template/blob/main/b...

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throwup238
2 hours ago
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Chisel absolutely isn’t the type of software that benefits from upgrading because it’s largely standalone. They could be the last project still stuck on 2.x a decade from now and it wouldn’t make much of a difference to its users.

I’ve only used Chisel for a few projects but I’ve never used anything but Chisel in those codebases. Simulation, verification, and all the painful stuff in FPGA/ASIC development depends on non-Scala tooling and all of the inputs (parametrization) are just read in from JSON files produced by scripts in other languages.

It would be nice to be up to date but the hardware NRE is so damn high that working around any limitations in Scala support is a rounding error. Chisel’s outputs are sent out for $X00,000 fab production runs so no one gives a damn whether it’s Scala 2 or 3 as long as it ships a working IC. The last time I used Chisel I was working on a mixed signal design where the Synopsys Fusion Compiler (maybe Custom compiler?) licenses alone ran into the hundreds of thousands per year (iirc it was per seat, so we must have spent over a million per year on Synopsys alone).

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appplication
2 hours ago
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I’m not super plugged into scala but I work with Spark quite a bit and my observation has been the whole scala 2.13 -> 3 transition is a huge mess for just about everyone who touches it. I don’t have enough hands-on context to understand why it’s so painful but it seems to be similar or worse to the python 2.7 -> 3 transition in terms of sticking friction.
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abeppu
2 hours ago
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It is a mess. I've spent some time trying to convert some academic oss projects and some removed features really force large redesigns. I think rather than funding the stuff on this announcement, I wish they would fund a team of experts to work on migration of a prioritized list of projects. This would both provide example patterns of migrating substantial projects and unblock projects who have been saying "we would like to try migrating but library X we use still hasn't"
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nightpool
2 hours ago
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Well, a more optimistic take here is that if future development on the Scala language was funded explicitly by/for people who are current using Scala 2, that means that the developers would more clearly understand their requirements in terms of making an easier transition for users moving from Scala 2 -> 3
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betaby
3 hours ago
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Why would the governments invest money on such a niche language? "Scala is widely used to build and operate essential systems across multiple industries." - very bold statement.
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bachmeier
1 hour ago
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It wouldn't have to be used in very many places to justify a 377k investment. A few big European banks alone would be worth it. Their website says "we invest globally in the open software components that underpin Germany's and Europe's competitiveness and ability to innovate". The fact that Scala is used at a university could also be classified as innovation. This is a minor amount of money if you're going to compare it with a STEM or medical research grant.
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forgotpwd16
2 hours ago
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Scala may have fallen out of favor but was quite popular few years ago. And perhaps still is the most popular EU-designed language (developed by EPFL).
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oytis
2 hours ago
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Python. Python is the most popular language designed in EU. EPFL is not even in EU
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seanhunter
1 hour ago
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> EPFL is not even in EU

For people who don't get this, EPFL is the Swiss Federal Technical Institue in Lausanne. Switzerland isn't part of the EU or EEA but has instead integrated itself with the EU very closely via a mindboggling number of bilateral agreements with the EU members and the Schengen agreement which allows for free, borderless movement. This has the effect of making it seem very much like they are part of the EU without actually being as such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...

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forgotpwd16
2 hours ago
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True to both. My brain not braining. Was thinking Europe-based/driven. Python started in CWI but PSF is USA-based.
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epolanski
2 hours ago
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Others worth mentioning are Kotlin, Ada, Pascal, Haskell, Zig, Erlang, Elixir, Prolog, Ocaml.
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rapnie
47 minutes ago
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Former EU, there's Gleam.
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ldayley
3 hours ago
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As a European project the foundation is likely pursuing funding from EU sources using the fact that it isn’t US tech as a selling point.
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oytis
2 hours ago
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Maybe they've applied for the grant 10 years ago when Scala was all rage
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nish__
3 hours ago
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I made another comment about it. But the answer is Scala is the number one language for building hardware these days via Chisel.
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betaby
3 hours ago
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https://www.chisel-lang.org/community

second link - 404

third link - achieved project on github

fourth link - educational project

Perhaps it's a very know and useful project, yet indeed seems very niche to me.

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ForHackernews
2 hours ago
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Is it niche? Scala is arguably the single most successful functional language. It interoperates with the whole JVM ecosystem. It's probably the #3 JVM language after Java and Kotlin.

Spark is Scala, Twitter was (is?) Scala https://sysgears.com/articles/how-and-why-twitter-uses-scala...

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epolanski
2 hours ago
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Scala was niche (but of course, you need to define niche first) and its market share has shrunk further in the last decade.
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dehrmann
1 hour ago
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> Scala is arguably the single most successful functional language.

That would be Javascript.

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ActorNightly
2 hours ago
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Anything that runs on JVM should not be invested in.
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iberator
1 hour ago
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Why? I bet you never even wrote custom VM for your lang/architecture.

There are like dozen of implementations for JVM alone: sun, Oracle, gnu, IBM etc etc

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bachmeier
1 hour ago
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There's also scala.js and Scala Native, even if the JVM is the primary platform.
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beastman82
3 hours ago
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Probably because it's an amazing language for people who know what they're doing
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halfmatthalfcat
39 minutes ago
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As a longtime Scala lover, I’m so happy to see this. Everyone in here hemming and hawing about version incompatibilities, build tooling and such conveniently forget the warts of other languages and their ecosystems. Scala is an incredible language, especially for the language being so flexible, which is a strength, not a weakness.
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ATMLOTTOBEER
2 hours ago
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Happy to see investment in sbt and the stdlib

Sad to see code coverage tooling called out as something they’re spending money on

Happy to see scala get sponsorship

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thefaux
2 hours ago
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The lead maintainer of sbt does it as a labor of love. I am very curious if he actually will be receiving any money.
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hocuspocus
1 hour ago
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47282847
1 hour ago
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Is it really accurate to call this an “investment”? The details are not known but it looks like a grant or donation by a charity rather than an investment?
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brabel
1 hour ago
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I think that any time to expect to get some benefit from it, other than a nice feeling for helping out, it should not be called a donation, at least not a charity donation.
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oytis
2 hours ago
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That's the problem with state investments in software. One can rightfully complain about misallocation of capital by private investors, but state investments are a whole new level.
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epolanski
2 hours ago
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The Albanian government invested 10M in Mira Murati's startup.

All on the basis of her...being Albanian.

Talk about public money mismanagement.

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robert_foss
51 minutes ago
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Very on brand for Germany to invest tech 15 years past its prime.
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Kriev
1 hour ago
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What a waste of my taxes.
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