u/_Sharp_in r/scala • Recommends
Pacific Northwest Scala 2013 We're Doing It All Wrong by Paul Phillips
0:00 / 0:00
#scala#compilerdesign#typesafety
Pacific Northwest Scala 2013 We're Doing It All Wrong by Paul Phillips
Confreaks
42K subscribers • 84 videos on Hallway • Conference channel
- Recommended by 6 people: 2 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters, 2 in engineering communities and 1 curated list.
- Presented by Paul Phillips, former Scala core contributor
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.
64K views13 years ago6 recommendations
Programming languagesSoftware designLanguage design and type systemsFunctional programmingCompilers and interpreters
Paul Phillips critiques Scala and modern programming language design, arguing that many common practices compromise type safety and performance.
My conclusion after moving a million lines of code is that everything we do (plus or minus) is wrong. Henry Ford said "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Our horses are now a billion times faster: our horses may well be the fastest in the galaxy. Are we too comfortable on our horses? Would we recognize better mounts if they came along, but didn't look like horses? Is the state of our profession one which warrants pride, shame, or despair? I will explore these questions with unwarranted optimism. Help us caption & translate this video! amara.org/v/FG7Z/Why it's here
6 people recommend this, 4 dispute itWhat people say. Engineers frequently reference this talk as a deep, critical look at the design flaws and complexities of Scala.
Moments people linked to
awesome-talkscurated list on GitHubRecommends
Under “Software Development”
We're Doing It All Wrong by **Paul Phillips** (Pacific Northwest Scala 2013) 50:42
pushcxon Lobsters • Recommends
We're Doing It All Wrong (2013)
First 38 minutes is about problems in implementing Scala; after that it's a general "What I'm after" in programming that's much more interesting to non-Scala devs.
mietekon Hacker News • Recommends
On “What every computer science major should know (2011)”
5 years ago, Paul Phillips was still a core contributor to Scala. Anyone seriously considering Scala should listen to his talk, titled “We’re doing it all wrong”, and take a look at Policy, his fork of the Scala compiler. link to this video link Previous discussion: link
arkadiyton Hacker News • Recommends
On “JetBrains' MPS Projectional Editor [video]”
If you enjoy these types of compiler videos then I would highly recommend the following rants against Scala by Paul Phillips (from TypeSafe and one of the core language contributors). He also talks about wanting to edit abstract syntax trees directly: link to this video link
u/JamieLyin r/scala • Recommends
Pacific Northwest Scala 2013 We're Doing It All Wrong by Paul Phillips
coolsunglasseson Hacker News • Disputes
On “Why Scala is the best language available today”
Right, and how well do subtyping and implicits get along? This is the problem, everything and the kitchen sink is tossed into Scala without any consideration for how well things work together because they've let it be a PLT grad students playground. link link to this video The Scala community didn't lose one its best core developers for nothing. I mention Clojure and Haskell in the same breath because FP and immutability are what I care about and Scala fails to be a nice functional language.
platzon Hacker News • Disputes
On “Scala turns 10”
My sample size is small, but the sentiment mainly comes from this: "Pacific Northwest Scala 2013 We're Doing It All Wrong by Paul Phillips - YouTube" 1 1 link to this video
fiatmoneyon Hacker News • Disputes
On “Why we love Scala at Coursera”
This is a thing about Scala which gives me pause: it looks like gazing into the guts of the compiler puts one on a course towards a nervous breakdown. link to this video
joehillenon Hacker News • Disputes
On “Consider the Nimrod Programming Language”
What is Scala doing in the same list with Rust, Julia, Nimrod, and C++? You do realize there is a JVM preventing it from being a systems level language, right? Also, you should need no more reason to avoid Scala than this: link to this video If you're interested in Scala, learn Haskell. It's faster, its design is re-enforced with proven mathematical concepts, and it doesn't have the worst syntax ever.
u/ksrynin r/ProgrammingLanguages • Mentions
Paul Phillips: "We're Doing It All Wrong"
"We're Doing It All Wrong" is the title of the keynote address Paul Phillips\* gave at the 2013 Pacific Northwest Scala Conference.
* The talk is **not** Scala-specific although he does criticize Scala heavily for certain design choices (for "compatibility" or "performance" reasons) which result in the loss of type safety or prevent certain kinds of optimizations.
* Do not sacrifice correctness for performance. "Those who would give up correctness for a little temporary performance deserve neither correctness nor performance."
* One point he makes is that "there is no such thing as **general purpose**." You cannot have a programming language tha…
u/sopvopin r/haskell • Mentions
On “Odersky: The Trouble with Types - Strange Loop 2013 [InfoQ]”
I'll just leave it here
u/halgariin r/Clojure • Mentions
On “Clojure: The Bad Parts - Bozhidar Batsov”
…t most of these people are not Clojure users (I assume since this wasn't a Clojure conference), so the whole conversation is a bit one-sided and lends itself to be written off as a rant. Even a blog post is a better format since the only people reading the blog are people who know the author. Imagine someone going to the Conj and giving this talk: link to this video . I'd laugh at all the things Scala is doing wrong, but it the talk is awkward enough given in front of the maintainers of the language. It's somehow worse if given in a context where they can't defend themselves.…
u/Drezilin r/haskell • Mentions
On “What are Haskellers' critiques of Scala?”
Ask Paul Phillips:
link to this video
link to this video
Both talks are VERY good and a must-see for everyone taking part in scala-discussions as this man knows what he talks about.
u/cyberndin r/Kotlin • Mentions
On “Kotlin already surpassed Scala?”
> Titanic ...
Thanks for making me laugh.
> be after Paul Phillips (main scalac contributor) left
I suddenly remember his really interesting rant. I think it was this: We're Doing It All Wrong by Paul Phillips
I actualy recommend people watching it, because many projects are riddled with problems he is attempting to highlight. For example "scala compiler is so ridiculously difficult to modify that you have to be a rocket scientist" is a type of problem that is not only holding back scala, but many commercial products.
Hopefully dotty is better in this regards.
> Worked on the Scala for 5 years, also left.
I never worked with scala in production. I only do some type of reevaluation…
u/predefin r/scala • Mentions
On “Paul Phillips explains why he lost faith in Scala and left Typesafe (PNW Scala 2013 slides)”
> video
link to this video