
Scala.JS 0.6.17 released - scalatohaskell
https://www.scala-js.org/news/2017/06/04/announcing-scalajs-0.6.17/
======
sraquo
Scala.js has been an amazing tool for my personal projects. I literally hit
euphoria sometimes writing stuff in it. I am yet to truly grasp the benefits
of full stack Scala (shared models, Autowire, etc.) but even for purely front-
end development it's great, it beats Typescript and Flow out of the water in
features, soundness and stability.

I wish I could use it at work since we (Hootsuite) already use Scala heavily
on the backend, but I am reluctant in part because Scala.js does not quite
have financial support of Lightbend. Or so it seems, it's a bit hard to tell
where Lightbend ends and the non-profit Scala Center begins. The latter did
pay to get some features implemented but reading their advisory board minutes,
I'm not sure if they would have enough funding to pay for the majority of
Scala.js development, which if I understand correctly happens for free as part
of a PhD right now (note: my information might be wrong/outdated!)

So, if anyone involved with Scala.js is reading this and has better insights
on the situation, it would be nice to know.

But I will keep using it regardless. It's marvellous.

~~~
sjrd
You are mostly accurate wrt. the "financial" situation of Scala.js. Except
that the Scala Center has an explicit Recommendation to "ensure the continuity
of Scala.js" [1]. At least that means that, should I (the Ph.D. student doing
Scala.js right now) stop working on it, the Scala Center has a mission to
ensure someone keeps working on it. As with all Scala Center Recommendations,
this is _not_ a guarantee. But given the popularity of Scala.js within the
Scala eco-system, I am confident that solutions will be found! Read more about
the Scala Center and how it works at [2]

[1]
[https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/min...](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/minutes/001-2016-q2.md#proposal-
scp-005-ensurance-of-continuity-of-scalajs-project) [2]
[https://scala.epfl.ch/](https://scala.epfl.ch/)

~~~
lomnakkus
(Too late to edit my comment.)

Were you at ScalaDays 2017 CPH? I don't think I saw you there, but you deserve
a round of applause, you Magnificent Bastard, you!

~~~
sjrd
Thank you. No I wasn't there this year. I was furiously preparing this release
:-p

See you probably in London for Scala eXchange ;)

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galfarragem
Scala is still growing popular:

[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=scala%2Cgo%2C...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=scala%2Cgo%2Ctypescript%2Crust)

~~~
todd8
This looks pretty good, but Google trends doesn't show any growth for
functional languages over the years :(

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=scala%20programmi...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=scala%20programming,haskell%20programming,ocaml%20programming,go%20programming,python%20programming)

------
sjrd
Scala.js author here. Ask me anything ;)

~~~
atemerev
Do your know that you have done the impossible and single-handedly revived
Scala? It was slowly dying two years ago, with all that Dotty uncertainty and
Typesafe->Lightbend transition.

Then you came and showed us that Scala can be productively used beyond JVM. A
new hope appeared, Scala-native was inspired by your example, and Dotty was
upgraded from a purely academic exercise to a viable pragmatic way to Scala 3.
The attitude was "if Scala.js guys did it, so can we".

So thank you, from me and all Scala hackers out there. Martin owes you a beer.
:)

~~~
adriaanm
> Typesafe->Lightbend transition

The renaming never affected the staffing of the Scala team at Lightbend --
we've been doing about 2/3 of core Scala development (major thank you to the
community for the other third!) since 2.10 (when I went from post-doc in
Martin's lab to the Scala team lead position).

In my opinion, it was a good thing that feature development slowed down in
Scala 2.x (while Martin pushed the research frontier forward in Dotty), so we
could focus on (in no particular order) compiler performance, a new back-end
and optimizer, Java 8 support, modularization,...

~~~
atemerev
Yes, it all went in a good way. However, this was a scary time, observing
Typesafe (now Lightbend) slowly transforming into a garden variety enterprise
Java consulting shop, and watching more and more core platforms like Akka
being adapted back to Java...

Things look better now. :)

~~~
adriaanm
Good to hear! I agree :-)

It was a necessary transition because we need to keep attracting customers
that initially are reluctant to invest in Scala training. We've found our Java
APIs to be a potent gateway drug to Scala, with many of our customers who
begin with the Java APIs quickly realizing they'll be even more productive
with Scala :-)

------
jaimex2
Does anyone use this?

~~~
virtualwhys
Sure, replacing a legacy Coffeescript + jQuery app with pure Scala.js.
Implementing core functionality of various jQuery plugins (Datatables,
Validation, FancyBox, Bootstrap Date/Time pickers, etc.) in Scala.js. Payload
is less than 50% of previous version's app bundle. You can of course pull in
client-side libs as you like, but for this project it's been really nice to
strip out the bloat.

Having Scala's type system on both client and server is pretty surreal, not to
mention full IDE support -- the entire world of javascript just appears as you
type ;-)

~~~
keth
What's the generated file size after gzipping for the project compared to
coffeescript + jquery if I may ask?

Also, can scala.js be used for progressive enhancement on static sites, or is
it limited to single page apps due to the need to map scala semantics to js?

------
partycoder
Sad that Scala.js will not use WebAssembly, since WebAssembly doesn't provide
GC.

~~~
sjrd
WebAssembly will most likely eventually provide a GC, at which point we'll do
what we can to support compiling to wasm.

See also:
[https://github.com/WebAssembly/gc/pull/1#discussion_r1109978...](https://github.com/WebAssembly/gc/pull/1#discussion_r110997852)

~~~
themihai
They don't seem be on Chrome roadmap. We'll all grow full beards by the time
DOM and GC become available.
[https://wasmdash.appspot.com](https://wasmdash.appspot.com)

~~~
sjrd
GC support can hardly be on Chrome's roadmap when the design of the spec has
hardly anything more than "we want to have it, and here are some vague goals".

So yes, we'll grow beards, but it will happen. Remember though that wasm as
whole happened in only a few years!

