Re: Another nit

Dave Webb wrote:

> > my objection is partly due to this. as Gosling said,
> > Java is easier to read. it's a great virtue for a
> > language to be easier to read. for a language with
> > type inference, however, implicit defs could very well
> > invite stupid bugs (it reads like something but does
> > something else).
>
> One of the great strengths with Java was always its simplicity and 
> readibility. Dumb people (e.g. me) could pick it up and run with it 
> without needing to dig into the language too far. There's a 
> diffference between 'dumbing down' and simplicity. Simplicity means 
> that things work out of the box intuitively. Everything hangs together 
> nicely without hidden surprises. Making things simple is hard work and 
> needs intelligence and feel. And sometimes that does mean sacrificing 
> some of the power. But simplicity should come first if a language is 
> going to go mainstream.

I agree. Simplicity has a huge benefit all around. (Unfortunately, 
humans are not on Moore's law. Short-term memory still has size 7 +/- 
2.) I would argue simplicity is correlated with getting a larger 
ecosystem. The simpler the language, the larger the class of people that 
can understand it and are enabled to contribute to it -- tools for 
annotating, debugging, documenting, refactoring, verifying etc etc.

> I think that's the great opportunity for Scala right now, to take a 
> quantum leap beyond Java while retaining the simplicity that Java's 
> fast losing.

Yes. Java has the feel of a language designed by a programmer for 
programmers. Whereas C++ has the feel of a language designed by a 
language designer. My aspiration for Scala is that it be closer in 
spirit to (the original) Java than C++.

Best,
Vijay

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