Re: [scala] Re: Move to scala-debate. Now. ("Library Change Request")

[Tony Morris-4]

;)

Stefane Fermigier wrote:

> I think the question is not about "Library Change Request" anymore,
> but "How to be respectful to newcomers".
>
> As a newcomer myself, I was really shocked by some remarks such as "I
> know four days seems like plenty of time to learn scala well enough to
> start pushing for gratuitous sweeping changes in the standard library,
> there's actually a six day minimum documented somewhere", specially
> now that I'm the one under attack by the same person who wrote this
> sentence.
>
> IMHO, caring about how the beginners / newcomers feel about a certain
> language / framework / project is one of the most important attitude a
> community should have, and one that I've always striving to foster in
> my projects.
>
> I remember fondly being greeted much more friendlily by other
> communities (ex: the Python community, 13 years ago).
>
> I've also been told that one of the shortcoming of the LISP community
> was this kind of attitudes towards newcomers. I hope these are the the
> same kind of people who constitute the Scala community.
>
> Regards,
>
>   S.
>
> On Jul 24, 2009, at 2:57 PM, Antonio Cunei wrote:
>
>> You people are severely abusing the "scala" mailing list, and being
>> disrespectful towards the (several hundred) subscribers of this list.
>>
>> Please continue the "Library Change" thread on "scala-debate", or
>> I'll have to start looking into setting up the list to bounce abusive
>> messages. This message has been copied in BCC to recent posters.
>>
>> A bit of tough love is needed here.
>>
>> Thank you
>> Toni
>
> --
> Stefane Fermigier, Founder and Chairman, Nuxeo
> Open Source, Java EE based, Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
> Web: http://www.nuxeo.com/ - Tel: [phone]
> New: follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sfermigier
> New: join the Nuxeo Group on LinkedIn:
> http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=43314
>
>

--
Tony Morris
http://tmorris.net/

[Kevin Wright-4]

So the outstanding tasks needed to get scala nice and stable and useable by newcomers would be:

• fix blocking issue with the scala maven plugin console on MS Windows
• consolidate the various concepts of equality, and get a logically rigorous and consistent implementation into the collections framework
• release a fast stable ide plugin
• encourage anyone with knowledge to start blogging and sharing some of that hard-earned experience
• update all appropriate documentation to be in line with the 2.8 release
• publish more wikis, with plenty of "getting started" entries and cookbooks to guide folks through their first few hesitant steps with the language
• finally sort out the generation of static class methods for interop with singleton objects
• get some more examples out in the real world of scala interacting with existing popular java frameworks, especially anything to do with websites and databases
  
• etc
• etc
  

and...

• decide if mkString would be so much better if renamed to makeString

I think that just about sums it up nicely :)

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Tony Morris <tonymorris@...> wrote:

;)

Stefane Fermigier wrote:
> I think the question is not about "Library Change Request" anymore,
> but "How to be respectful to newcomers".
>
> As a newcomer myself, I was really shocked by some remarks such as "I
> know four days seems like plenty of time to learn scala well enough to
> start pushing for gratuitous sweeping changes in the standard library,
> there's actually a six day minimum documented somewhere", specially
> now that I'm the one under attack by the same person who wrote this
> sentence.
>
> IMHO, caring about how the beginners / newcomers feel about a certain
> language / framework / project is one of the most important attitude a
> community should have, and one that I've always striving to foster in
> my projects.
>
> I remember fondly being greeted much more friendlily by other
> communities (ex: the Python community, 13 years ago).
>
> I've also been told that one of the shortcoming of the LISP community
> was this kind of attitudes towards newcomers. I hope these are the the
> same kind of people who constitute the Scala community.
>
> Regards,
>
>   S.
>
> On Jul 24, 2009, at 2:57 PM, Antonio Cunei wrote:
>
>> You people are severely abusing the "scala" mailing list, and being
>> disrespectful towards the (several hundred) subscribers of this list.
>>
>> Please continue the "Library Change" thread on "scala-debate", or
>> I'll have to start looking into setting up the list to bounce abusive
>> messages. This message has been copied in BCC to recent posters.
>>
>> A bit of tough love is needed here.
>>
>> Thank you
>> Toni
>
> --
> Stefane Fermigier, Founder and Chairman, Nuxeo
> Open Source, Java EE based, Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
> Web: http://www.nuxeo.com/ - Tel: [phone]
> New: follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sfermigier
> New: join the Nuxeo Group on LinkedIn:
> http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=43314
>
>

--
Tony Morris
http://tmorris.net/

[Jacques.Noye]

What about a specific scala-newcomers list, from which grumpy experts would be banned?

Cheers,

-- Jacques ;-)

Le 24 juil. 09 à 15:43, Kevin Wright a écrit :

So the outstanding tasks needed to get scala nice and stable and useable by newcomers would be:

• fix blocking issue with the scala maven plugin console on MS Windows
• consolidate the various concepts of equality, and get a logically rigorous and consistent implementation into the collections framework
• release a fast stable ide plugin
• encourage anyone with knowledge to start blogging and sharing some of that hard-earned experience
• update all appropriate documentation to be in line with the 2.8 release
• publish more wikis, with plenty of "getting started" entries and cookbooks to guide folks through their first few hesitant steps with the language
• finally sort out the generation of static class methods for interop with singleton objects
• get some more examples out in the real world of scala interacting with existing popular java frameworks, especially anything to do with websites and databases
  
• etc
• etc
  

and...

• decide if mkString would be so much better if renamed to makeString

I think that just about sums it up nicely :)

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Tony Morris <tonymorris@...> wrote:

;)

Stefane Fermigier wrote:
> I think the question is not about "Library Change Request" anymore,
> but "How to be respectful to newcomers".
>
> As a newcomer myself, I was really shocked by some remarks such as "I
> know four days seems like plenty of time to learn scala well enough to
> start pushing for gratuitous sweeping changes in the standard library,
> there's actually a six day minimum documented somewhere", specially
> now that I'm the one under attack by the same person who wrote this
> sentence.
>
> IMHO, caring about how the beginners / newcomers feel about a certain
> language / framework / project is one of the most important attitude a
> community should have, and one that I've always striving to foster in
> my projects.
>
> I remember fondly being greeted much more friendlily by other
> communities (ex: the Python community, 13 years ago).
>
> I've also been told that one of the shortcoming of the LISP community
> was this kind of attitudes towards newcomers. I hope these are the the
> same kind of people who constitute the Scala community.
>
> Regards,
>
>   S.
>
> On Jul 24, 2009, at 2:57 PM, Antonio Cunei wrote:
>
>> You people are severely abusing the "scala" mailing list, and being
>> disrespectful towards the (several hundred) subscribers of this list.
>>
>> Please continue the "Library Change" thread on "scala-debate", or
>> I'll have to start looking into setting up the list to bounce abusive
>> messages. This message has been copied in BCC to recent posters.
>>
>> A bit of tough love is needed here.
>>
>> Thank you
>> Toni
>
> --
> Stefane Fermigier, Founder and Chairman, Nuxeo
> Open Source, Java EE based, Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
> Web: http://www.nuxeo.com/ - Tel: [phone]
> New: follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sfermigier
> New: join the Nuxeo Group on LinkedIn:
> http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=43314
>
>

--
Tony Morris
http://tmorris.net/

[Martin Odersky]

Hi Kevin,

It's a good summary. The core committers group is working on most of
the technical issues as we speak, and I think we are making good
progress.
We do need help on the ``spreading the word'' side of your list:

> encourage anyone with knowledge to start blogging and sharing some of that
> hard-earned experience
> update all appropriate documentation to be in line with the 2.8 release
> publish more wikis, with plenty of "getting started" entries and cookbooks
> to guide folks through their first few hesitant steps with the language
> get some more examples out in the real world of scala interacting with
> existing popular java frameworks, especially anything to do with websites
> and databases

Cheers

 -- Martin

[Kevin Wright-4]

I should really be practicing what I preach here!  I've got a few thousand words worth of articles that I've written up and keep tweaking instead of just getting them out in the wild...

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:24 PM, martin odersky <martin.odersky@...> wrote:

Hi Kevin,

It's a good summary. The core committers group is working on most of
the technical issues as we speak, and I think we are making good
progress.
We do need help on the ``spreading the word'' side of your list:

> encourage anyone with knowledge to start blogging and sharing some of that
> hard-earned experience
> update all appropriate documentation to be in line with the 2.8 release
> publish more wikis, with plenty of "getting started" entries and cookbooks
> to guide folks through their first few hesitant steps with the language

> get some more examples out in the real world of scala interacting with
> existing popular java frameworks, especially anything to do with websites
> and databases

Cheers

 -- Martin

[Justin du coeur]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 10:24 AM, martin odersky <martin.odersky@...> wrote:

It's a good summary. The core committers group is working on most of
the technical issues as we speak, and I think we are making good
progress.
We do need help on the ``spreading the word'' side of your list:

Something to ponder on this -- what can us unwashed masses do to help?

I'll use myself as an example: I don't know if I'm typical, but I'm probably still a reasonable datum.  My Scala time is distinctly limited -- I devote one day a week to my own Scala-based project, and the rest has to be over on my (non-Scala) paid work.  Most of that time needs to be focused on Programming Dammit, but I'm interested in helping in dribs and drabs as I can -- possibly contributing bits towards documentation (although that's somewhat limited by the fact that I'm still on 2.7.x for my project), possibly writing little wiki how-to articles as I learn more about the language and environment -- stuff like that.

Basically, it's a scale thing.  Right now, the work is being done (I believe) more or less entirely by the hard core.  Is there a way to leverage us less-learned but probably more numerous types to fill in the gaps helpfully?  At the moment, I'm not even sure which wiki would be most appropriate for me to help with, or who I'd talk to about getting involved, but helping out a *bit* would be interesting to me...

[Ricky Clarkson]

A good test suite for the new collections library in 2.8 is needed.
That might be a reasonable place to start.

2009/7/24 Justin du coeur <jducoeur@...>:

> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 10:24 AM, martin odersky <martin.odersky@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> It's a good summary. The core committers group is working on most of
>> the technical issues as we speak, and I think we are making good
>> progress.
>> We do need help on the ``spreading the word'' side of your list:
>
> Something to ponder on this -- what can us unwashed masses do to help?
>
> I'll use myself as an example: I don't know if I'm typical, but I'm probably
> still a reasonable datum.  My Scala time is distinctly limited -- I devote
> one day a week to my own Scala-based project, and the rest has to be over on
> my (non-Scala) paid work.  Most of that time needs to be focused on
> Programming Dammit, but I'm interested in helping in dribs and drabs as I
> can -- possibly contributing bits towards documentation (although that's
> somewhat limited by the fact that I'm still on 2.7.x for my project),
> possibly writing little wiki how-to articles as I learn more about the
> language and environment -- stuff like that.
>
> Basically, it's a scale thing.  Right now, the work is being done (I
> believe) more or less entirely by the hard core.  Is there a way to leverage
> us less-learned but probably more numerous types to fill in the gaps
> helpfully?  At the moment, I'm not even sure which wiki would be most
> appropriate for me to help with, or who I'd talk to about getting involved,
> but helping out a *bit* would be interesting to me...
>

--
Ricky Clarkson
Java Programmer, AD Holdings
[phone]
Skype: ricky_clarkson
Google Talk: ricky.clarkson@...

[Randall Schulz]

On Friday July 24 2009, Justin du coeur wrote:
> ...
>
> Something to ponder on this -- what can us unwashed masses do to
> help?
>
> ...


Write more Scala code.


RRS

[Kevin Wright-4]

As you're already writing code, you can get better by replying to questions on the mailing lists, it'll help you get better as well.  You could maybe write up some of your experiences in a blog too.

I'd also advise you to pick a real project and solve it in Scala, instead of just experimenting.  You'll me more likely then to find the sort of bugs that are going to hit people in typical usage.

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Randall R Schulz <rschulz@...> wrote:

On Friday July 24 2009, Justin du coeur wrote:
> ...

>
> Something to ponder on this -- what can us unwashed masses do to
> help?
>

> ...


Write more Scala code.


RRS

[Martin Odersky]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 12:08 AM, Randall R Schulz<rschulz@...> wrote:

> On Friday July 24 2009, Justin du coeur wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> Something to ponder on this -- what can us unwashed masses do to
>> help?
>>
>> ...
>
>
> Write more Scala code.
>
>

That's basically a good suggestion, but let me expand on this. If you
are new to Scala, get comfortable with it first. Experiment with
different programming styles, see what you like. Then, think of
writing a tool or library for it. Right now, Scala relies on Java
libraries for a large part of its ecosystem. That's entirely feasible,
but for many tasks there should be better ways. If you think you have
a library that's nicer than the Java one, think of sharing it. There's
the scalax site for integrating libraries into a community standard,
or you could just put it up on google code.
Libraries that have stood the test of time and heavy utilization
should eventually find their way into the standard Scala distribution.
We have limited resources, and therefore can't vet all contributed
libraries ourselves. So they first have to gain some sort of
populalrity before we can consider integrating them in the
distribution.

Cheers

 -- Martin

[Justin du coeur]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:24 PM, Kevin Wright <kev.lee.wright@...> wrote:

As you're already writing code, you can get better by replying to questions on the mailing lists, it'll help you get better as well.  You could maybe write up some of your experiences in a blog too.

I'd also advise you to pick a real project and solve it in Scala, instead of just experimenting.  You'll me more likely then to find the sort of bugs that are going to hit people in typical usage.

I think I was unclear -- this *is* a real project.  It's by no means simple experiments: I'm only working 80% time on my main job so that I can keep going on the bootstrap startup that I spent last year on.  (Suffice it to say, it's an attempt to write a communications infrastructure that combines the best aspects of IM, forums, Twitter, and so on.  Google Wave *may* come along and squish me, but I'm not taking that for granted yet.)

My original back end was written in Java/Hibernate -- by the end of nine months of that, I was unhappy at the efficiency of the thing (way too many DB calls), and practically ready to shoot myself because I was so irritated by the limitations of Java.  (After five years of C#, Java just plain looks *old*.)  So around the time I found myself needing to get a "real job" again, I was also discovering Scala, and decided that I very much liked the language, and the actors architecture suits the real-time communications.  I'm gradually layering a new actors-based XMPP infrastructure on top of my old Hibernate-based Apache one, and beginning to deprecate the older parts.

So the "real project" part is certainly up and running, and I'm doing a modest amount of proselytizing in my personal blog (since many of my friends and readers are also serious programmers).  I'm just exploring more concrete ways to help the project a little bit, now that I have a real stake in its success...

[Justin du coeur]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:58 PM, martin odersky <martin.odersky@...> wrote:

That's basically a good suggestion, but let me expand on this. If you
are new to Scala, get comfortable with it first. Experiment with
different programming styles, see what you like. Then, think of
writing a tool or library for it. Right now, Scala relies on Java
libraries for a large part of its ecosystem. That's entirely feasible,
but for many tasks there should be better ways. If you think you have
a library that's nicer than the Java one, think of sharing it. There's
the scalax site for integrating libraries into a community standard,
or you could just put it up on google code.

Hmm.  That's a very good point, and probably an excuse to get off my duff and start organizing my open-source bits.  I have a moderate amount of library code in several languages that is *intended* to be open source, but which I simply haven't gotten around to releasing yet.  So far it's mostly just tidbits, but I suppose every tidbit helps.

(I do actually have an example of just the sort of thing you're talking about, that I'll eventually need, it's just large enough to be a bit daunting to get started: a proper native-Scala XMPP server framework.  I'm currently using Openfire, but it's a fairly poor fit, not least because its XML handling requires a lot of adaptation to integrate with Scala.  As I start to move away from that towards a pure Scala solution, that will make a fine open-source project...)

[Kevin Wright-4]

If messaging is your thing, then you definitely want to take a look at what's going on in apache ESME.

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 6:22 PM, Justin du coeur <jducoeur@...> wrote:

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:58 PM, martin odersky <martin.odersky@...> wrote:

That's basically a good suggestion, but let me expand on this. If you
are new to Scala, get comfortable with it first. Experiment with
different programming styles, see what you like. Then, think of
writing a tool or library for it. Right now, Scala relies on Java
libraries for a large part of its ecosystem. That's entirely feasible,
but for many tasks there should be better ways. If you think you have
a library that's nicer than the Java one, think of sharing it. There's
the scalax site for integrating libraries into a community standard,
or you could just put it up on google code.

Hmm.  That's a very good point, and probably an excuse to get off my duff and start organizing my open-source bits.  I have a moderate amount of library code in several languages that is *intended* to be open source, but which I simply haven't gotten around to releasing yet.  So far it's mostly just tidbits, but I suppose every tidbit helps.

(I do actually have an example of just the sort of thing you're talking about, that I'll eventually need, it's just large enough to be a bit daunting to get started: a proper native-Scala XMPP server framework.  I'm currently using Openfire, but it's a fairly poor fit, not least because its XML handling requires a lot of adaptation to integrate with Scala.  As I start to move away from that towards a pure Scala solution, that will make a fine open-source project...)