Re: So is Scala going to add an Effect System... or what?

On Friday June 26 2009, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> Haskell's goals were not to become mainstream.
>
> Scala cannot really be a 'better Haskell' without losing subtyping.
>
> Scala isn't even a 'better Java', as you can't use Scala to write
> libraries for Java programmers to use.  Foo$.MODULE$ is not pleasant.

I'd venture to suggest that Java's static imports make that manageable.
The ugliness is then confined to the import prefix of any given source
file.


> Instead of siding with what Scala should be a better version of, I'd
> like to suggest that Scala should be a better version of Scala.

I agree. It's useful to compare languages as to their relative merits
and shortcomings, but Scala is sufficiently distinct from either Java
or Haskell (and probably others with which it is meaningfully compared;
perhaps OCaml) to conceive of it as a "++" of any existing language.

Henceforth (or "going forward," in today's parlance) Scala should evolve
in terms of itself and in terms of principles of programming and
software engineering, not the specifics of other languages.


> Effect systems are genuinely useful, but hard to get right.  I hope
> one of the people asking for them can work on an implementation.  I'd
> be interested to see how far you could go just writing one as a
> library.

Or as an independent analysis and verification tool.

Surely that should at least be attempted before grafting more deeply
into the language or its compiler.


> ...


Randall Schulz