Scala vs Fan

[Rob Dickens-2]

Dear list,

I read a blog entry[1] this morning, about an interesting-sounding[2] new language. Like Scala, it has static typing with type inference, first-class functions, operators as methods, mix-ins and 'Erlang-style concurrency'. Unlike Scala, it 'compiles into fcode - a bytecode representation that can be translated into both Java bytecode and IL easily. This translation is typically done at runtime, which enables you to deploy Fan modules as a single file and have them run on either VM.'

Of particular interest (I thought) is the following combination of features:

* top-level name-space modules (pods) correspond to actual deployment modules (zip files)

* support for declaring instances of classes in serialised form using a subset of the language (rather than XML)

* built-in build engine (rather than using Ant or Maven).

So I was just wondering what anyone thought about this.

Cheers,

Rob

1 http://www.ajaxonomy.com/2008/java/not-a-fan-of-scala-an-evolutionary-approach

2 http://www.fandev.org/doc/docIntro/WhyFan.html

[Meredith Gregory]

Rob,

Here is a quote from the Fan website indicating their position on generics.

Generics

Interestingly enough while Fan is trying to make programs less strongly typed, the Java and C# languages are moving to be more strongly typed. Generic types illustrate this trend - a feature added to both Java and C# in the not so distant past. Our philosophy is that generics are a pretty complicated solution to a fairly insignificant problem.

Fan takes a limited approach to generics. There is no support for user defined generics. However, three built-in classes List, Map, and Func can be parameterized using a special syntax. For example a list of Ints in Fan is declared as Int[] using the familiar array type syntax of Java and C#. This trade-off seems to hit the sweet spot where generics make sense without complicating the overall type system.

i think they haven't look at Haskell. Genericity enables two-level type solutions. These are elegant, compositional and (can be made) efficient. i've demonstrated repeatedly that features like reflection come for free from two-level type-based solutions. So, i'm not likely to be a fan of the Fan design sensibility.

Best wishes,

--greg

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 7:11 AM, Rob Dickens <arctic.bob@...> wrote:

Dear list,

I read a blog entry[1] this morning, about an interesting-sounding[2] new language. Like Scala, it has static typing with type inference, first-class functions, operators as methods, mix-ins and 'Erlang-style concurrency'. Unlike Scala, it 'compiles into fcode - a bytecode representation that can be translated into both Java bytecode and IL easily. This translation is typically done at runtime, which enables you to deploy Fan modules as a single file and have them run on either VM.'

Of particular interest (I thought) is the following combination of features:

* top-level name-space modules (pods) correspond to actual deployment modules (zip files)

* support for declaring instances of classes in serialised form using a subset of the language (rather than XML)

* built-in build engine (rather than using Ant or Maven).

So I was just wondering what anyone thought about this.

Cheers,

Rob

1 http://www.ajaxonomy.com/2008/java/not-a-fan-of-scala-an-evolutionary-approach

2 http://www.fandev.org/doc/docIntro/WhyFan.html

--
L.G. Meredith
Managing Partner
Biosimilarity LLC
806 55th St NE
Seattle, WA 98105

+1 206.650.3740

http://biosimilarity.blogspot.com

[James Iry-2]

Here are some more quotes from people on the Fan forums.  It appears that Fan is the anti-Scala.  Has Scala gotten big enough to have a backlash already?

"Scala is an example of static typing gone wrong."

"I agree that Scala is too complicated and that Fan is better. "

"I agree that Scala style outside most common experience. Option types and their behavior like Lists in Scala works well there, but I personally don't think it's good for Fan."

"The reason I am hesitant [about having a 'trait' keyword] is that it sounds too much like Scala. Scala folks could look at Fan and say "wannabe", and non-Scala-loving folks could see it and be afraid it looked like Scala."

"Concerning Scala...perfect static typing is a red herring."

"But in general, I'd take Fan's current system over Scala's generics and abstract types. Time will tell what proves popular (not necessarily what works best, though)."

"My concern is that if people think of it as star, they may be more likely to use it creatively. And creative operator overloading is one of the sad things for C++ (and Scala). Makes code hard to understand."

"I understand how FP has garnered a lot of interest recently, but its not where most developers are at. In fact I suspect that Scala will remain a niche language at least in part because of being quite FP focussed."

"Thanks Brian & Andy for giving the JVM world a saner alternative to Scala. Keep things simple and clean!"

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Meredith Gregory <lgreg.meredith@...> wrote:

Rob,

Here is a quote from the Fan website indicating their position on generics.

[Ricky Clarkson]

It looks like Fan is anti-thought.

2008/7/8 James Iry <jamesiry@...>:

Here are some more quotes from people on the Fan forums.  It appears that Fan is the anti-Scala.  Has Scala gotten big enough to have a backlash already?

"Scala is an example of static typing gone wrong."

"I agree that Scala is too complicated and that Fan is better. "

"I agree that Scala style outside most common experience. Option types and their behavior like Lists in Scala works well there, but I personally don't think it's good for Fan."

"The reason I am hesitant [about having a 'trait' keyword] is that it sounds too much like Scala. Scala folks could look at Fan and say "wannabe", and non-Scala-loving folks could see it and be afraid it looked like Scala."

"Concerning Scala...perfect static typing is a red herring."

"But in general, I'd take Fan's current system over Scala's generics and abstract types. Time will tell what proves popular (not necessarily what works best, though)."

"My concern is that if people think of it as star, they may be more likely to use it creatively. And creative operator overloading is one of the sad things for C++ (and Scala). Makes code hard to understand."

"I understand how FP has garnered a lot of interest recently, but its not where most developers are at. In fact I suspect that Scala will remain a niche language at least in part because of being quite FP focussed."

"Thanks Brian & Andy for giving the JVM world a saner alternative to Scala. Keep things simple and clean!"

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Meredith Gregory <lgreg.meredith@...> wrote:

Rob,

Here is a quote from the Fan website indicating their position on generics.

[David MacIver]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 7:20 PM, James Iry <jamesiry@...> wrote:
> "The reason I am hesitant [about having a 'trait' keyword] is that it sounds
> too much like Scala. Scala folks could look at Fan and say "wannabe", and

Hm. What a weird suggestion. Why would we look at a statically typed
object oriented language that has such innovative features as
compiling for .NET and the JVM, mixin inheritance, supporting
functional programming and providing useful library features like
message passing concurrency and think it was a wannabe?

[Randall Schulz]

On Tuesday 08 July 2008 11:23, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> It looks like Fan is anti-thought.

"Thinking gives you wrinkles!"
 — Talking Malibu Stacy Doll


RRS

[Viktor Klang]

Guys,

I think it's good that people unable to grasp Scala has an alternative to go to,
I'd really hate to see all them left out in the snow.

</sarcasm>

-V

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 8:38 PM, Randall R Schulz <rschulz@...> wrote:

On Tuesday 08 July 2008 11:23, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> It looks like Fan is anti-thought.

"Thinking gives you wrinkles!"
 — Talking Malibu Stacy Doll


RRS

--
Viktor Klang
Rogue Software Architect

[tmorris]

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Hash: SHA1

This is why I lobby for type theory in universities - idiotic remarks
from self-proclaimed professionals just makes me cringe in a "I feel
embarrassed for you" kind of way.

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


James Iry wrote:

> Here are some more quotes from people on the Fan forums.  It
> appears that Fan is the anti-Scala.  Has Scala gotten big enough to
> have a backlash already?
>
> "Scala is an example of static typing gone wrong."
>
> "I agree that Scala is too complicated and that Fan is better. "
>
> "I agree that Scala style outside most common experience. Option
> types and their behavior like Lists in Scala works well there, but
> I personally don't think it's good for Fan."
>
> "The reason I am hesitant [about having a 'trait' keyword] is that
> it sounds too much like Scala. Scala folks could look at Fan and
> say "wannabe", and non-Scala-loving folks could see it and be
> afraid it looked like Scala."
>
> "Concerning Scala...perfect static typing is a red herring."
>
> "But in general, I'd take Fan's current system over Scala's
> generics and abstract types. Time will tell what proves popular
> (not necessarily what works best, though)."
>
> "My concern is that if people think of it as |star|, they may be
> more likely to use it creatively. And creative operator overloading
>  is one of the sad things for C++ (and Scala). Makes code hard to
> understand."
>
> "I understand how FP has garnered a lot of interest recently, but
> its not where most developers are at. In fact I suspect that Scala
> will remain a niche language at least in part because of being
> quite FP focussed."
>
> "Thanks Brian & Andy for giving the JVM world a saner alternative
> to Scala. Keep things simple and clean!"
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Meredith Gregory
> <lgreg.meredith@... <mailto:lgreg.meredith@...>> wrote:
>
>
> Rob,
>
> Here is a quote from the Fan website indicating their position on
> generics.
>
>

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[Erik Engbrecht]

Some parts of this message have been removed. Learn more about Nabble's security policy.

Guys,

  I'm not sure...uhh...making fun of Fan is appropriate (even if they take occassional shots at Scala)...  In many ways Fan seems to move away from Java in the opposite direction as Scala does.  Scala has more rigorous type checking than Java, and Fan has less rigorous typing and is more dynamic.

 

http://erikengbrecht.blogspot.com/2008/01/programming-language-continuum.html

 

So if you look at the diagram available above, Scala moves from Java towards the likes of Haskell, Fan moves more towards dynamic languages.  Depending on your perpective that could be good, bad, or indifferent.

 

-Erik

 

On 7/8/08, Viktor Klang <viktor.klang@...> wrote:

Guys,

I think it's good that people unable to grasp Scala has an alternative to go to,
I'd really hate to see all them left out in the snow.

</sarcasm>

-V

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 8:38 PM, Randall R Schulz <rschulz@...> wrote:

On Tuesday 08 July 2008 11:23, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> It looks like Fan is anti-thought.

 

"Thinking gives you wrinkles!"
 — Talking Malibu Stacy Doll


RRS

--
Viktor Klang
Rogue Software Architect

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

[Viktor Klang]

Erik, you misunderstood me.
I was just trying to illustrate _not_ to sink to the level of throwing crap at others.
Hence, the </sarcasm> tag

Fan looks like it fits a good spot as to get people to move away for the Java language,
the more alternatives there are, the better.

Cheers,
-V

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Erik Engbrecht <erik.engbrecht@...> wrote:

Guys,

  I'm not sure...uhh...making fun of Fan is appropriate (even if they take occassional shots at Scala)...  In many ways Fan seems to move away from Java in the opposite direction as Scala does.  Scala has more rigorous type checking than Java, and Fan has less rigorous typing and is more dynamic.

 

http://erikengbrecht.blogspot.com/2008/01/programming-language-continuum.html

 

So if you look at the diagram available above, Scala moves from Java towards the likes of Haskell, Fan moves more towards dynamic languages.  Depending on your perpective that could be good, bad, or indifferent.

 

-Erik

 

On 7/8/08, Viktor Klang <viktor.klang@...> wrote:

Guys,

I think it's good that people unable to grasp Scala has an alternative to go to,
I'd really hate to see all them left out in the snow.

</sarcasm>

-V

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 8:38 PM, Randall R Schulz <rschulz@...> wrote:

On Tuesday 08 July 2008 11:23, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> It looks like Fan is anti-thought.

 

"Thinking gives you wrinkles!"
 — Talking Malibu Stacy Doll


RRS

--
Viktor Klang
Rogue Software Architect

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

--
Viktor Klang
Rogue Software Architect

[Viktor Klang]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Tony Morris <tmorris@...> wrote:

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This is why I lobby for type theory in universities - idiotic remarks
from self-proclaimed professionals just makes me cringe in a "I feel
embarrassed for you" kind of way.

Yeah, cheap-shots are way lame.
I reacted the same way as  you did.

Cheers man,
-V
 

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

James Iry wrote:
> Here are some more quotes from people on the Fan forums.  It
> appears that Fan is the anti-Scala.  Has Scala gotten big enough to
> have a backlash already?
>
> "Scala is an example of static typing gone wrong."
>
> "I agree that Scala is too complicated and that Fan is better. "
>
> "I agree that Scala style outside most common experience. Option
> types and their behavior like Lists in Scala works well there, but
> I personally don't think it's good for Fan."
>
> "The reason I am hesitant [about having a 'trait' keyword] is that
> it sounds too much like Scala. Scala folks could look at Fan and
> say "wannabe", and non-Scala-loving folks could see it and be
> afraid it looked like Scala."
>
> "Concerning Scala...perfect static typing is a red herring."
>
> "But in general, I'd take Fan's current system over Scala's
> generics and abstract types. Time will tell what proves popular
> (not necessarily what works best, though)."
>
> "My concern is that if people think of it as |star|, they may be
> more likely to use it creatively. And creative operator overloading
>  is one of the sad things for C++ (and Scala). Makes code hard to
> understand."
>
> "I understand how FP has garnered a lot of interest recently, but
> its not where most developers are at. In fact I suspect that Scala
> will remain a niche language at least in part because of being
> quite FP focussed."
>
> "Thanks Brian & Andy for giving the JVM world a saner alternative
> to Scala. Keep things simple and clean!"
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Meredith Gregory

> <lgreg.meredith@... <mailto:lgreg.meredith@...>> wrote:
>
>
> Rob,
>
> Here is a quote from the Fan website indicating their position on
> generics.
>
>

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--
Viktor Klang
Rogue Software Architect

[Ricky Clarkson]

You seem to say "less rigorous typing" as if it might possibly be an advantage.

2008/7/8 Erik Engbrecht <erik.engbrecht@...>:

Guys,

  I'm not sure...uhh...making fun of Fan is appropriate (even if they take occassional shots at Scala)...  In many ways Fan seems to move away from Java in the opposite direction as Scala does.  Scala has more rigorous type checking than Java, and Fan has less rigorous typing and is more dynamic.

 

http://erikengbrecht.blogspot.com/2008/01/programming-language-continuum.html

 

So if you look at the diagram available above, Scala moves from Java towards the likes of Haskell, Fan moves more towards dynamic languages.  Depending on your perpective that could be good, bad, or indifferent.

 

-Erik

 

On 7/8/08, Viktor Klang <viktor.klang@...> wrote:

Guys,

I think it's good that people unable to grasp Scala has an alternative to go to,
I'd really hate to see all them left out in the snow.

</sarcasm>

-V

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 8:38 PM, Randall R Schulz <rschulz@...> wrote:

On Tuesday 08 July 2008 11:23, Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> It looks like Fan is anti-thought.

 

"Thinking gives you wrinkles!"
 — Talking Malibu Stacy Doll


RRS

--
Viktor Klang
Rogue Software Architect

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

[tmorris]

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Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> You seem to say "less rigorous typing" as if it might possibly be
> an advantage.
>

That's what I was thinking, if only to myself :) What a change of
heart from you Ricky!

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

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[Christos KK Loverdos]

I have been and I still am a fun of dynamic-scripting languages (let's call them "loose"). But right at his time I need the expressiveness and type-theoretic feel of scala. Having been practicing the art of Java (as a popular form of programming) for a decade it's time to move on. I have expressed myself positively on this again in the lists, so I would not like to repeat my words......

It all depends on our needs, desires and (semi-hidden) wishes :-) Experience also counts.

By the way, G. Meredith's extract & comment on the generics non-support of Fan is what caught my eye first when surfing at the Fan site.

Christos.

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:44 PM, Tony Morris <tmorris@...> wrote:

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This is why I lobby for type theory in universities - idiotic remarks
from self-proclaimed professionals just makes me cringe in a "I feel
embarrassed for you" kind of way.

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

James Iry wrote:
> Here are some more quotes from people on the Fan forums.  It
> appears that Fan is the anti-Scala.  Has Scala gotten big enough to
> have a backlash already?
>
> "Scala is an example of static typing gone wrong."
>
> "I agree that Scala is too complicated and that Fan is better. "
>
> "I agree that Scala style outside most common experience. Option
> types and their behavior like Lists in Scala works well there, but
> I personally don't think it's good for Fan."
>
> "The reason I am hesitant [about having a 'trait' keyword] is that
> it sounds too much like Scala. Scala folks could look at Fan and
> say "wannabe", and non-Scala-loving folks could see it and be
> afraid it looked like Scala."
>
> "Concerning Scala...perfect static typing is a red herring."
>
> "But in general, I'd take Fan's current system over Scala's
> generics and abstract types. Time will tell what proves popular
> (not necessarily what works best, though)."
>
> "My concern is that if people think of it as |star|, they may be
> more likely to use it creatively. And creative operator overloading
>  is one of the sad things for C++ (and Scala). Makes code hard to
> understand."
>
> "I understand how FP has garnered a lot of interest recently, but
> its not where most developers are at. In fact I suspect that Scala
> will remain a niche language at least in part because of being
> quite FP focussed."
>
> "Thanks Brian & Andy for giving the JVM world a saner alternative
> to Scala. Keep things simple and clean!"
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Meredith Gregory

> <lgreg.meredith@... <mailto:lgreg.meredith@...>> wrote:
>
>
> Rob,
>
> Here is a quote from the Fan website indicating their position on
> generics.
>
>

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--
__~O
-\ <, Christos KK Loverdos
(*)/ (*) http://ckkloverdos.com

[James Iry-2]

Agreed, and making fun of Fan is one thing but making fun of its proponents really crosses the line.

Every language designer and user makes a decision about type systems.  It's a complicated decision.  Before all us Scala folk get too smug about type systems, are we using a full-on dependently typed language like Cayenne?  Or using a total language?

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Erik Engbrecht <erik.engbrecht@...> wrote:

Guys,

  I'm not sure...uhh...making fun of Fan is appropriate

[Christos KK Loverdos]

Every language designer and user makes a decision about type systems.  It's a complicated decision. 

Right. And a language designer can do whatever wishes. That's plain freedom. I may or may not agree with the decisions, they may even not fit my taste. It's a totally different conversation.
 

Before all us Scala folk get too smug about type systems, are we using a full-on dependently typed language like Cayenne?  Or using a total language?

 
Christos.

--
__~O
-\ <, Christos KK Loverdos
(*)/ (*) http://ckkloverdos.com

[Erik Engbrecht]

I think it does have an advantage in some situations.  One of my personal struggling points with Scala (and to a lesser extent Java, C++, and pretty much all other statically typed languages) is that expressing partially formed ideas is much harder.  The Scala compiler likes to point out too many of my errors, when I just want to see if it "generally seems to work" before putting all the additional effort in to make the code correct.  This is particularly painful when I need to abstract over types.

 

On the flip side, I'm continually amazed by how extensive of refactoring you can do of heavily generic code and have it pass almost all of its tests as soon as it compiles again.  Of course, making it compile again can be an arduous experience, but that's my own fault for breaking the code.  The compiler is like having a huge battery of unit tests (only much better) built for free.

 

I'm not sure I can conceptualize a language that lets me have my cake and eat it, too.  At one point I want the compiler to stay out of my way, because I know full well I'm wrong about a bunch of details, and on the other side I want the compiler to do all sorts of amazing checking of those details because I want them to all be correct.

 

So in a nutshell I'm saying that sometimes I want to write incorrect code, and Scala gets in my way of doing that.  But that's OK, because I still have Python for doing that.

 

On 7/8/08, Tony Morris <tmorris@...> wrote:

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Ricky Clarkson wrote:
> You seem to say "less rigorous typing" as if it might possibly be
> an advantage.
>

That's what I was thinking, if only to myself :) What a change of
heart from you Ricky!

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

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

[Christos KK Loverdos]

 

I'm not sure I can conceptualize a language that lets me have my cake and eat it, too.  At one point I want the compiler to stay out of my way, because I know full well I'm wrong about a bunch of details, and on the other side I want the compiler to do all sorts of amazing checking of those details because I want them to all be correct.

 

So in a nutshell I'm saying that sometimes I want to write incorrect code, and Scala gets in my way of doing that.  But that's OK, because I still have Python for doing that.

Hhhmm... you have just generated the idea of the -loosetypes command-line switch to the scalac executable ;-)

--
__~O
-\ <, Christos KK Loverdos
(*)/ (*) http://ckkloverdos.com

[Adriaan Moors-2]

On 08 Jul 2008, at 22:32, Christos KK Loverdos wrote:

>
> I'm not sure I can conceptualize a language that lets me have my  
> cake and eat it, too.  At one point I want the compiler to stay out  
> of my way, because I know full well I'm wrong about a bunch of  
> details, and on the other side I want the compiler to do all sorts  
> of amazing checking of those details because I want them to all be  
> correct.
>
> So in a nutshell I'm saying that sometimes I want to write incorrect  
> code, and Scala gets in my way of doing that.  But that's OK,  
> because I still have Python for doing that.
>
>
> Hhhmm... you have just generated the idea of the -loosetypes command-
> line switch to the scalac executable ;-)

well, many researchers are thinking about this, it just hasn't matured  
to the point of -- say -- higher-kinded types ;-)

<unstructured braindump, it's scala-debate after all! ;-)>
see Meijer's paper on static typing when possible, dynamic typing when  
necessary, or Bracha's work on pluggable type systems.
others that spring to mind are Siek, and Flanagan, who call it "hybrid  
typing" or "gradual typing". Heck, even Wadler (notorious proponent of  
static typing) is thinking about it (in a way that I still don't fully  
understand -- as in seeing the bigger picture behind his ideas): see  
his paper on well typed papers can't be blamed (a pun on Milner's  
original slogan wrt type soundness)
</braindump -- not even well-formed xml :-p>


hth
adriaan

[James Iry-2]

See also "Types Considered Harmful" (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/harmful-mfps.pdf) by Benjamin Pierce of "Types and Programming Languages" fame.  The paper is not so much about hybrid or gradual typing.  Instead he talks about using contract systems to supplement type systems at the point where types move beyond your type system's abilities.

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 2:02 PM, Adriaan Moors <adriaan.moors@...> wrote:

<unstructured braindump, it's scala-debate after all! ;-)>
see Meijer's paper on static typing when possible, dynamic typing when necessary, or Bracha's work on pluggable type systems.
others that spring to mind are Siek, and Flanagan, who call it "hybrid typing" or "gradual typing". Heck, even Wadler (notorious proponent of static typing) is thinking about it (in a way that I still don't fully understand -- as in seeing the bigger picture behind his ideas): see his paper on well typed papers can't be blamed (a pun on Milner's original slogan wrt type soundness)
</braindump -- not even well-formed xml :-p>


hth
adriaan