<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Depends what you call “mainstream” (or successful) for a programming language…... <br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Is it calculated in (1) #developers ?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Or is it calculated in (2) #instances running it ?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Or is it calculated in (3) #millions of dollars revenue from it ?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">==========</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A. If (2), the Scala will be a HUGE success — because of Spark. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">IBM just offered to put more then 3000 (!! and that’s a LARGE number) of developers on Spark.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Cloudera just seemed to have dumped Hadoop to become a Spark reseller.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So…. in terms on number of instances running it, Scala WILL be a huge success.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">(how is Tyrpesafe, the company that does the Scala compiler making money … that’s another story…)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">B. If it is (3) — millions of $$$, I can probably give you the most “cost-effective” programming language in the world. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language)" class="">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language)</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It’s used for high end financial systems, and a copy of this compiler costs about $1M.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Not bad ….</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Number of developers writing code in this language … probably in the 100s….</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">C. If it in terms of (1) number of developers …. are we really sure it matters ?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Who makes money today out of Javascript ? (arguably the most popular programming language …)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Nobody.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">======================</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So, which one do you care about ?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I care about (2) and (3).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best</div><div class="">Dana</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jun 17, 2015, at 10:47 AM, Ihe Onwuka <<a href="mailto:ihe.onwuka@gmail.com" class="">ihe.onwuka@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">I wish I could agree with you but I think it is different this time.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Couple of days ago I saw an update on the Scala group, somebody saying that the upsurge of interest in Spark could be the killer app that catapults Scala into the mainstream. Much as I would like to see it happen for a functional programming language, everybody except Scala dev's knows that the language is just too damn complicated to ever go mainstream. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Even if this criticism could not be levelled at Scala, suspend disbelief for a minute and accept that Spark is indeed this killer app, alas it is not going to catapult Scala anywhere because the people employed in that domain will demand that it is delivered in Python and/or R and the people that hire them will acquiesce and say verily so. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In the 1990's the bell tolled for the Cobol mainframe programmer. It's not like that now. On the JVM, the message is not adapt to Scala/Clojure or die it's don't worry mate stick to what you know and Java 8 will bail us out.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The IT industry has presided over the widepsread and rudimentary amateurisation of software development. So when the right solution comes along it encounters a rearguard resistance from people who depend on the technological status quo for their jobs and who roll out their stock in trade objections (performance usually high up on the list). It's not like 1990 when mainframe programmers were saying I need to learn Unix/C and an Rdb and/or 5 years later I need to learn Java and what they thought to be OOP. Hence 20 years later we are still talking Java, Javascript and SQL and 5 years on they will be looking at Java 10 and still writing Fortran with classes. The industry goes along with it because they can continue to source bodies cheaply.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I absolutely agree that what you said should be the way it is goes but I don't see how it is going to happen with the vested agenda's at play.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 1:10 PM, daniela florescu <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:dflorescu@me.com" target="_blank" class="">dflorescu@me.com</a>></span> wrote:<br class=""><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word" class=""><div class=""><span class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br class=""></blockquote></div><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_extra">Well I have no particular beef with the format itself other than the lack of tools. Now that we have JSONiq I am less bothered about that (assuming one has the opportunity to use it). <br class=""></div></div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div></span>Well, JSONiq is only implemented by Zorba (and another implementation in IBM middle tier).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And Zorba is a dead piece of code.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So, having “JSONiq” as a specification…...doesn’t mean much, isn’t it ? Unless is adopted by other XQuery processors.</div><div class="">(which I cross fingers they will do…)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_extra">I agree with your ideals (1 and 2 above) too but it should be evident from the sociology of the JSON community that these things are not going to happen. </div></div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div></span><div class="">Well… nope. Not clear at all. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I started working on query languages for XML in 1996. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Same as now, the whole industry was for using SQL for querying XML — including ME, I had </div><div class="">a system running, a bunch of PhD students working on that, etc.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The decision of the W3C NOT to use SQL for that purpose was taken in 2001. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">5 years later. You know how many query languages have been proposed during those 5 years ?</div><div class="">Tons: UnQL, XML-QL, etc, etc.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Those things need TIME. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">People need to try SQL first, before they realize it’s a dead end. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">MarkLogic needs to try Javascript on the server side, before realizes that’s a dead end.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The industry moves MUCH, MUCH slower that one can expect.</div><span class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra">You have people putting stuff in JSON databases without thinking how are we going to get it out and coming up with half-assed solutions for doing so. This is not progress and this is not good.<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br class=""></div></div></div></blockquote></span></div><br class=""><div class="">Again, patience is golden :-)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There will be tons of those half baked solutions (MongoDB’s JSON query language, CouchDB’s..), before people realize that this</div><div class=""> is not going anywhere….some of those databases will be acquired, never to be seen again, them or their query languages….etc.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">===============</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Honestly, I give it 5 years for the JSON query languages to stabilize. 2020 would be my estimate. Even later if there is a database bubble crash in the</div><div class="">meantime.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best</div><div class="">Dana</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div>
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