Simon Willison's Weblog: scala

How do I choose between asynchronous web frameworks? My tech group is fairly language agnostic and we're trying to standardize on some technologies.

2013-07-31T10:15:00+00:00

My answer to How do I choose between asynchronous web frameworks? My tech group is fairly language agnostic and we're trying to standardize on some technologies. on Quora

Since they are all pretty close to each other and it sounds like your tech group's skills would support any of them, I would suggest having your tram build a simple prototype in all three so you can compare them for your own particular team and situation.

Tags: frameworks, javascript, nodejs, play, python, scala, tornado, webapps, quora

Can Scala gain wider usage than Java any time soon?

2012-02-11T17:17:00+00:00

My answer to Can Scala gain wider usage than Java any time soon? on Quora

No, because Scala is harder to master than Java.

(By "master" I mean get to the point where you can read and understand code written by someone else, no matter what language features and idioms they are using)

Tags: concurrency, java, programming, scala, scaling, web-development, quora

Where can I find great Java/Scala developers in London?

2012-01-22T10:36:00+00:00

My answer to Where can I find great Java/Scala developers in London? on Quora

There are quite a few Scala events in London - here are the ones we know about at the moment: http://lanyrd.com/topics/scala/i...

The Scala Days conference at the Barbican in April looks like a particularly good place to find Scala developers. Since it's still a relatively niche language I imagine there are a bunch of Java developers who would like the opportunity to work with it full time.

Tags: java, london, recruiting, scala, quora

What's powering the Content API?

2010-05-24T14:08:00+00:00

What's powering the Content API?

The new Guardian Content API runs on Solr, scaled using EC2 and Solr replication and with a Scala web service layer sitting between Solr and the API’s end users.

Tags: apis, contentapi, ec2, guardian, openplatform, scala, scaling, solr, recovered

Using Scala with Google App Engine

2009-04-11T15:28:48+00:00

Using Scala with Google App Engine

Scala works, but I haven’t seen confirmation on actors yet (which are likely to break due to their dependency on threads).

Tags: google, google-app-engine, java, scala, threads

Kestrel

2009-02-26T10:20:24+00:00

Kestrel

Twitter’s Robey Pointer rewrote their Starling message queue in 1500 lines of Scala, adding reliable fetch (where consumers can confirm their receipt of an item) and blocking fetches, which reduce the need for consumers to poll for updates (and hence solve my only beef with the original Starling). I haven’t tried running this on a low spec VPS yet but it looks very promising.

Tags: kestrel, message-queues, robey-pointer, scala, starling, twitter