Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2)

Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by zubinmehta on Thursday February 21, 2013 @10:16AM (#5257831)

We were merely in search of a good web framework. Java has battletested libraries but so does python and a lot of other general programming languages. It still isn't answering our core question. A decision on what web framework to use has much more to do with the framework itself(its philosophy and community) than with the language it is built in.

Coming to django, I would argue that it is the best documented project on this planet! Django has a huge number of plugins, quickens the process, and is based on some amazing philosophies(DRY) and you happen to admire what a big deal it is when you go deep into design of your web app.

Also, I can even argue that I can get a programmer who doesn't know python to start on Django in 4 hours. Now, I wouldn't bank on this point as it is a language ecosystem point, but it is a true fact, happened to me some years ago.

Lift, is cherry picking features from django/rails, which is actually a good thing, but I see it being a lot less progressive as compared to Django even at the scale at which Django is right now.

Play, I haven't used, so cannot argue much on that. I think Play2 is less than a year old? Surely, I cannot let my startup developers write more bytes than necessary. Why code something which is already done and that is precisely what happened with us when we started working with Django. Well tested libraries can be pip installed.

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Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by m501 on Thursday February 21, 2013 @03:10PM (#5259973)

Play is definitely more akin to django than lift is. Lift, as I've read not experienced, has specific philosophy for how to build web apps that is slightly different than django or play.

I'm a long time django user. I love django. I've used it in production apps. I like to try out new languages as a hobby and so I got myself the programming in scala and the Play framework in action (manning). Just trying out Play however I can't seem to get this feeling that I could do it more easily and faster in django, though that may be because I'm comfortable with django and python. There are also a ton of django apps that I can leverage to build out parts of my app. I'm not sure about the play ecosystem in that respect.

I'm also specifically looking for advantages that the language itself can bring but since I haven't gotten very far I haven't discovered any yet but I'm hopeful that I will be pleasantly surprised.

Having said all that I just saw some play love coming from LinkedIn: http://engineering.linkedin.com/play/play-framework-linkedin

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Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by mjt0229 on Thursday February 21, 2013 @10:25AM (#5257891)

Er. If your startup developers can't write more bytes than necessary, why are you publicly doing a shoot-out? You clearly can't afford to explore all reasonable options. You're wasting everyone's time if by cherry picking outdated Scala frameworks to compare to the state-of-the-art Python frameworks.

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Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by zubinmehta on Thursday February 21, 2013 @10:34AM (#5257949)

Firstly, this isn't a shoot-out. I apologize if the title feels that way. It's our account on why we chose one(language) over the other looking into various real-life variables, not just web frameworks.

>> You clearly can't afford to explore all reasonable options. How else would we know which one to go with and save extra bytes?

Lift/Play are surely not outdated. I am just stating objective facts that led us to one over the other.

Read both the articles we have posted to get a flavour :)

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Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by mjt0229 on Thursday February 21, 2013 @10:39AM (#5257972)

I was responding to your comment that you had not looked at Play 2.0. I would not argue that it's outdated, I am arguing that if you excluded it from consideration, you missed something.

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Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by zubinmehta on Thursday February 21, 2013 @11:21AM (#5258286)

I agree. We skimmed through and figured it's very new, so didn't explore more.

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Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by justinsteele on Thursday February 21, 2013 @11:11AM (#5258207)

Technically he missed lots of things - there are hundreds of frameworks.

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Re:Language War - Scala versus Python (Part 2) by cover_drive on Thursday February 21, 2013 @10:40AM (#5257977)

The blog post is for startup founders who are making very early-stage decisions on technology, hiring, funding etc. If you are not one of those, it's probably not very useful to you. We did receive appreciatory comments from people. I'm not sure why you say "wasting everyone's time" ...

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