Scalawags #39: Scala Center + Scala Days

scalawags-39.md

Scalawags #39: Scala Center + Scala Days

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhfuuWm3SHE

Scala Days NYC happened and two of us were there. And the Scala Center launched, with Heather as its Executive Director.

Your hosts this episode: Josh Suereth, Dick Wall, Heather Miller, Seth Tisue

Join us during and between episodes for web-based Scalawags chat on Gitter.

Intro (0:00)

• Dick Wall was swallowed whole by a new Scala + GIS job

Scala Days (2:05)

• favorite talks, favorite moments?
• Heather: Scala Native talk, by a hilarious Denys Shabalin
• Scala.meta:
  • Seth: favorite moment: Eugene Burmako's outfit
  • the talk (Scala.meta progress report) was good too (Heather concurs)
  • projects are beginning to appear now based on Scala.meta
  • for example, Ólafur Páll Geirsson's Scalafmt code formatter
    • https://olafurpg.github.io/scalafmt/
  • Josh predicts future Scala.meta based tooling improvements
  • Scala.meta is beta now. new inline and meta keywords

Scala Native (9:40)

• important links:
  • repo: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native
  • Twitter account, https://twitter.com/scala_native
  • Denys's slides: https://github.com/densh/talks/blob/517b20c30dd4aaf390785039cdd002f623eaa91e/2016-05-11-scala-goes-native.pdf
• Dick: how big are the binaries produced?
  • we don't know -- somebody want to try the getting-started instructions in Jos Dirksen's blog post and see? http://www.smartjava.org/content/getting-started-scala-native
• Josh: hey did you know Swift compiles to Android now?
  • merged! swiftlang/swift#1442
• Dick wants Scala Native for use on AWS Lambda so he doesn't have to wait for the JVM to start up
  • (a bit later, Lutz Hühnken suggests using Scala.js for this)
• Josh: what's the GC story? Heather: it's Boehm for now
• Heather: region-based memory management could be exciting here, but that isn't the direction currently
• Seth: could the Scala Center make Scala Native happen, if Giant Incorporation Inc. wrote a big check?
  • Heather: "hypothetically yes". it came up at the first advisory board meeting
  • but the check must be comically physically large

Scaladex (16:05)

• Heather: the Scala Center is working on a Scala package index
  • with data scraped from Maven Central, GitHub, Stack Overflow, etc.
• help users discover libraries and add the latest version to your project
• much less widely used languages have this, why shouldn't Scala?
• there's no URL or repo yet. it was demoed at Scala Days NYC and will be launched and open-sourced at Scala Days Berlin in June
  • if you want to help, wait until then. or ask on https://gitter.im/scala/center
  • a big refactor is in progress, after it's done will be a better time
• it shows you the Scaladoc for any library
• Josh: does it do Scala X-Ray?
  • which is a moribund project of Mark Harrah's for producing syntax-highlighted, hyperlinked Scala source code in HTML format: https://github.com/harrah/browse
  • Seth: hey somebody looking for open-source work to do, revive this and hook it up to Scaladex! (beat Josh to it!)
  • Timothy Perrett commented: "Man, scala xray, that takes me back! here's an example of xray for those who are interested! http://harrah.github.io/browse/samples/sbt/sbt/Analysis.scala.html"

Scala Center (28:25)

• oh hey wait we didn't intro the Scala Center, which has now launched
  • https://scala.epfl.ch
• it is in Switzerland, not California
• it is a university-based non-profit
  • the university (EPFL) scrutinizes the non-profit angle heavily
• two big goals: open source and education
• the Scala MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) was "the biggest MOOC by far" at EPFL
• new MOOCs coming, still via Coursera
  • one on parallel programming, by Aleksandar Prokopec
    • content similar to his book: https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Concurrent-Programming-Aleksandar-Prokopec/dp/1783281413
• Dick: will Scala Center revive the SIP/SLIP process? Heather: yes! we hired for this.
  • a spontaneous "recovering former SIP/SLIP coordinator" support group forms
• Scala Native again:
  • a listener (Timothy Perrett, who represents Verizon on the Scala Center advisory board) asks about Scala Native and the Scala Center
  • Heather: at the advisory board meeting, we concluced that direct Scala Center involvement would be premature right now, but we expect that to change. the board voted that the Center should get involved when appropriate
• notes from the advisory board will be published

Conclusion (41:00)

• there's a ton of Scala Days stuff we didn't get to
• will Scala Days NYC talk videos be available? yes, as always. as of June 14 they are not yet available
  • keep checking http://scaladays.org