Combining The Best Of Python, Ruby, & Java??????

[Ravi Teja]

> Ok, here's the Hello World example from the Scala website:
>
> object HelloWorld {
>   def main(args: Array[String]) = {
>     Console.println("Hello, world!")
>   }
> }
>
> Opening and closing braces?
> "def main(args: Array[String])"?
> Console.println?
>
> About the only Pythonic thing I can see here is the "def" keyword.
> Otherwise, it looks too much like Java - no, thanks!
>
> -- Paul

Don't be too harsh on it though. It is a language built for the
JVM/CLR. The author perhaps intended the library to be natural to the
users of the respective SDKs regardless of its' aesthetics and it
explicitly seems to provide a unified API for Java and .NET. Of course,
that is nothing new. Many languages have interchangeable backends for
these platforms these days but there seems to be a specific focus on
that here. The syntax does resemble Java/C#, which is also important if
you want buy in from the Java/C# crowd.

But semantically it is a proper functional language. The features may
not attract Python users who might prefer Boo/Jython/IronPython. But it
does offer something to disillusioned Groovy users.

But on the other hand, there are some neat features even for Python
programmers.
Tail recursion
Pattern matching
Currrying
Macros
Concurrency
Native XML support

Of course, you can get by without some of these in Python with
workarounds, libraries or hacks.
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/496691
http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0309/ (in 2.5)
http://logix.livelogix.com/ (offline)