Scala Native VS scala-cli

Links: - https://dotty.epfl.ch/ - https://scala-native.org/en/stable/ - https://www.scala-js.org/ - https://typelevel.org/ - https://zio.dev/ - https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/3120 - https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/16517 - https://dotty.epfl.ch/docs/reference/experimental/index.html - https://scala-cli.virtuslab.org/ - https://scalameta.org/metals/ - https://docs.scala-lang.org/scala3/guides/migration/compatibility-intro.html - https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2023/04/18/faster-scalajs-development-with-frontend-tooling.html - https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2022/08/17/long-term-compatibility-plans.html

There's a plant of topics in which we might need help. To name a few, we might need some help in [porting the remaining JSR-166 types](https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/issues/3165) to Scala Native shipped with future experimental multithreading support, but also large parts of the Java standard library need some improvements or reimplementations. Last but not least, we need people dedicated to the optimization of our current toolchain to make it use fewer resources and allow for faster builds.

Scala Native could have been this language, but at this stage I don't see it happening.

good stuff there is https://scala-native.org/ and http://www.scala-js.org/ then, I suppose?

Please vote for dropping Scala 2.11 support in Scala.js (https://github.com/scala-js/scala-js/issues/4759) and Scala Native (https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/issues/2780)

I presume only the JVM version of Scala can use Loom but scala-native (https://scala-native.org/) and scala-js (https://www.scala-js.org/) can't use Loom. Similarly with Kotlin, the JVM Kotlin gets Loom, but the native and Javascript backends do not.

Nope. Scala Native is (still) single threaded, just like you are in e.g. Python or Node.js.

Until recently, there was only 64-bit support. 32-bit support is coming, though, see this pr. This means that you will be able to target 32-bit microcontrollers soon. Anything lower than 32-bit might not be realistic.

The release is binary compatible with previous ones, but Scala 3 on its own does not fully source compatible - more info about that in https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/2480 The full release is planned for the first weeks of January.

That has not much to do with the JVM. See Scala CLI[1] for instance, the developer experience is pretty similar to Cargo.

The thing is, with any non-trivial project, zero to hello world isn't a very useful metric. Gradle (and Maven, sbt, ...) do a lot more than Cargo, and their usage is primarily optimized for complex multi-modules projects.

[1] https://scala-cli.virtuslab.org

Scala CLI v1.0.5 was released. https://github.com/VirtusLab/scala-cli/releases/tag/v1.0.5 This includes:

The new official Scala build tool / compiler front end (scala-cli) is amazing,

https://scala-cli.virtuslab.org/

The thing that really struck me after years of python is how it lets you out dependencies directly in a comment on top of a script and it will download and run with them automatically, without poisoning any system settings. It's so simple!

sbt can indeed be a bit harsh for beginners. If your aim is not to build a big project, you might want to use scala-cli instead : no complex build script, only command line goodness to run, test, compile and package your code. Yes it supports dockerization. No need for a dockerfile.

Imo the tooling has to become way more user friendly. The Scala community has picked up on this and made Scala-CLI the official running tool for Scala. It's a great tool for single module projects and makes everything from adding dependencies to building fat jars very easy, also the runner comes as a native image. The reason I'm mentioning is because sometimes we forget how hard it can be as a beginner, especially when younger people are used to simpler CLIs from newer languages.

We even have a ticket for something similar right here. Feel free to upvote and/or comment on it.

Links: - https://dotty.epfl.ch/ - https://scala-native.org/en/stable/ - https://www.scala-js.org/ - https://typelevel.org/ - https://zio.dev/ - https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/3120 - https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/16517 - https://dotty.epfl.ch/docs/reference/experimental/index.html - https://scala-cli.virtuslab.org/ - https://scalameta.org/metals/ - https://docs.scala-lang.org/scala3/guides/migration/compatibility-intro.html - https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2023/04/18/faster-scalajs-development-with-frontend-tooling.html - https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2022/08/17/long-term-compatibility-plans.html

Code gens are not that far away: https://github.com/VirtusLab/scala-cli/issues/610

Check out Scala CLI as it will very soon be the one true and sanctioned way to get started.