Artima Blogs: "Is Scala really more complicated than Java?" & "Are Shorter Variable Names Better?"

[Randall Schulz]

Hi,

Apropos some perennial topics hereabouts:

- "Is Scala really more complicated than Java?"
  <http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=268561>

"Summary
"After a conversation with a guy at work, I was inspired to take a look
at whether Scala is inherently more complex than Java, and decided it
wasn't."


- "Are Shorter Variable Names Better?"
  <http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=266543>

"Summary
"A recent paper by Gilles Dubochet describes a study that concluded
Scala code written in a functional style that favors for expressions
and higher order functions is easier to comprehend than Scala code
written in a more Java-like, looping style. It also found that
meaningful variable names were insignificant or even detrimental to
comprehension."


Randall Schulz

[Erik Engbrecht]

I think the examples in "Is Scala really more complicated that Java?" are far to shallow to be meaningful.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Randall R Schulz <rschulz@...> wrote:

Hi,

Apropos some perennial topics hereabouts:

- "Is Scala really more complicated than Java?"
 <http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=268561>

"Summary
"After a conversation with a guy at work, I was inspired to take a look
at whether Scala is inherently more complex than Java, and decided it
wasn't."


- "Are Shorter Variable Names Better?"
 <http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=266543>

"Summary
"A recent paper by Gilles Dubochet describes a study that concluded
Scala code written in a functional style that favors for expressions
and higher order functions is easier to comprehend than Scala code
written in a more Java-like, looping style. It also found that
meaningful variable names were insignificant or even detrimental to
comprehension."


Randall Schulz

--
http://erikengbrecht.blogspot.com/

[Warren Henning]

He was replying to a specific piece of code from someone he knew. The
choice of example was pretty much fixed in advance.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Erik Engbrecht
<erik.engbrecht@...> wrote:
> I think the examples in "Is Scala really more complicated that Java?" are
> far to shallow to be meaningful.

[Erik Engbrecht]

Being fixed in advanced doesn't create additional meaning.

I think this is an important topic that is up for debate.  It's just that most of the discussions, including ones in which I've actively participated, seem to either devoid of code or consist of trivial code examples.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 9:46 PM, Warren Henning <warren.henning@...> wrote:

He was replying to a specific piece of code from someone he knew. The
choice of example was pretty much fixed in advance.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Erik Engbrecht
<erik.engbrecht@...> wrote:
> I think the examples in "Is Scala really more complicated that Java?" are
> far to shallow to be meaningful.

--
http://erikengbrecht.blogspot.com/

[Warren Henning]

Long pieces of code are hard to read. The point was to concisely show
that Scala can be used in a manner similar to Java, a familiar tool.

Every Scala article does not need to have ideas that are completely
foreign to almost all working programmers like monads and
message-passing concurrency.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Erik Engbrecht
<erik.engbrecht@...> wrote:
> Being fixed in advanced doesn't create additional meaning.
> I think this is an important topic that is up for debate.  It's just that
> most of the discussions, including ones in which I've actively participated,
> seem to either devoid of code or consist of trivial code examples.