[infinispan-dev] scala code in Infinispan

[Bela Ban]

I've said it before and am repeating myself here: I believe including 
Scala code is a very bad decision for the following reasons:

- Not a lot of people are proficient in Scala
- What happens when the people who wrote the Scala code leave ? We'd 
have to build up Scala knowledge in house to be able to develop/maintain 
that code
- Support: same for knowledge: we have to support Scala code if there's 
a bug, but IMO we don't have Scala folks in support
- Debugging: cross language debugging is hairy at least (or so I 
heard/read from different people)
- I've had a few run-ins with the Scala compiler when compiling 
Infinispan with Maven

If it was up to me, I'd flat-out *prohibit* any new Scala code in 
Infinispan. Long-term I'd also replace Scala with Java, although the 
server is probably not such a big problem as it is a standalone and 
independent subsystem.

my 5 cents,


On 1/31/13 12:45 PM, Mircea Markus wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The REST module is written in Scala (both main + tests). We have some 
> *test* contributions written in Java (thanks  mlinhard).
> There was an IRC discussion on whether it's worth migrating the Java 
> contribution to Scala code or not.
>
> Pros for migrating the contribution from Java to Scala:
> - the REST module is written in Scala. Contributing these tests in 
> Java would make the module bi-lingual, potentially confusing future 
> contributors
> - even though this is not the case with this particular contribution, 
> there might be code duplications between the scala test suite and java 
> test suite.
>
> Cons for migrating the contribution from Java to Scala:
> - there are contributors that are not familiar with Scala or are more 
> proficient with Java(such as mlinhard). Forcing them to contribute in 
> a language they are not familiar with would put them off
> - my general feeling over time was that people (including me) are not 
> very enthusiastic about debugging and extending Scala code. So IMO if 
> there's a choice between scala and java  (in the scope of the scala 
> modules) we should stick to Java wherever possible (such as this 
> contribution).
>
> This email is not about the migration of scala code to java, but about 
> the very specific contribution described above (even thought the mix 
> of scala+java code in ISPN is a a very interesting topic by itself).
>
>

-- 
Bela Ban, JGroups lead (http://www.jgroups.org)