Is scala.net ready?

Question

Scala also seems to have a .NET implementation. I was wondering if this is a complete implementation without any loose ends or just a showcase.

This is important because the application that we are going to develop must have a graphical Windows interface, in addition to the main implementation on the Internet. Having a language in which the main code can be ported between two implementations looks like the creator of a deal.

Has anyone worked on a Scala .NET implementation? Any feedback?

Answer 1

I heard that new funding was acquired for the .NET side, but at the moment this is a big and growing distance from “finished production” or even “usable”. There was no registration that significantly affected the .NET side for a long time.

January 15, 2010 Patch : A recent post on one of scala's listings.

From: Lucas Ritz

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 at 03:18, Naftoli Guggenheim wrote:

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I think H2 can be run on
.NET, according to its documentation / website.
If you are looking for a database engine programmed in Scala, I personally | I heard nothing, but it does not mean anything.
If you mean ORM, etc., that is a few. You can use the Lift Mapper even on the Internet without an elevator application (just turn on the web kit and use the IIRC banks).
What is the status of scala on .NET?

We are working on loading the compiler, and we are fixing MSIL-Backend-Bugs along the way. EPFL will provide a compiler running on .NET (which uses IKVM.OpenJDK.Core.dll, at least in the first version)

We now have a cross-compiler running on the JVM, and a shortened version of scala -library.jar that works on .NET.

For some parts, we will rely on the community (for example, porting more scala -library.jar to .NET).

Lucas

Answer 2

Martin Odersky says in this interview with SE Radio (January 2011):

I do not want to give you an approximate arrival time, but this year it should be mandatory, including visual support for the studio.

He starts talking about .NET at 15 minutes.

Answer 3

Wikipedia entry states:

There is an alternative implementation for the .NET platform, but it has not been updated. (edit)

In the "limitations" of the FAQ section there is this entry:

Does Scala work on .Net?

Yes, the current Scala distribution can compile a program for the .Net Platform. The .Net platform has many similarities with Java, but it also has many features, maintaining this port is a difficult task. The MSIL / .Net Scala version at this stage implements almost the entire Scala language, and most of the standard libraries. One significant limitation is that structural types do not yet work on .NET. There may still be problems when using, in particular, complex exception handlers. A small number of libraries are not available due to .Net features and interaction with other .Net languages ​​is not supported. For further details, please refer to this (possibly a bit dated) documentation page.

The guide to using Scala with .NET talks about version 1.4, which is quite outdated. On the other hand, it looks like the documentation was written back in 2008, including the “Scala on .NET: quirks” page, which sounds pretty important.

Without my own experience, it sounds like support is lame together, but that the .NET port is not really a first-class citizen. The fact that there is no “buzz” around Scala on .NET (compared to the Java version) is also not encouraging. This is not like what I would like to use for commercial software at the moment. Of course, it’s possible that it’s good and it’s not selling well enough. If you are really interested in this idea, I would ask for a mailing list .

Why not use Eclipse RCP for a Java / Scala-based Windows client, or use .NET for a web application?

Answer 4

In an interview with scala -lang.org on July 18, 2011:

Can I run Scala programs in .Net now?
Miguel :
The simple answer is yes, with some restrictions that will be addressed in the fall.

Link: Interactive View
Link: Binaries

Answer 5

At the moment - no, not really, which is a pity, as it is a rather funny language.

Programs like Hello Hello, subtle, even bizarre tricks, such as writing a simple stack, where a small part of Python (the same code under Jython or IronPython) manages the same Scala fragment.

All that is moderately taxed - scalac-net compilation can and will throw, even if the code does not use anything outside the scala namespace, and also builds and passes a fairly comprehensive set of unit tests on the JVM. It can prevent even fairly simple assemblies from being created (even if it is built using .net 1.0 to match the low mscorlib specification included in the scala -msil package).

My test tests for "moderate taxation" included the following implementations designed to compensate for current .net flaws

• port in scala C # library for BigInteger ( from codeplex , with my own unit tests)
• port of scala Java code in scala.actors

Answer 6

Like Scala Days 2010 in April, Miguel Garcia worked on Scala.NET. I believe that he is working on a visual studio plugin, and I'm not sure how far things are advanced, however you can find evidence of his work here:

http://lamp.epfl.ch/~magarcia/ScalaCompilerCornerReloaded/ http://www.sts.tu-harburg.de/people/mi.garcia/ScalaCompilerCorner/MixedSourceScalaCSharp.pdf http: //www.sts.tu- harburg.de/people/mi.garcia/ScalaCompilerCorner/ScalaNetLearnsLINQTricks.pdf

Miguel is now doing his postdoc in the EPFL: http://lamp.epfl.ch/~magarcia/

Paul's answer (extempore) probably contains more recent information, but if I were curious, I could ask Miguel directly.

Answer 7

DDJ: Is there a .NET version of Scala planned?

MO: Yes. We announced this in July. We have a project, which is actually funded by Microsoft, to create the .NET version of Scala. And we have the first bootable version of the compiler compiling itself on .NET. There is still work, especially for integrating Visual Studio.

Interview with Scala Martin Odersky - July 14, 2011

Answer 8

Looking at the SVN repo, some activity definitely happens in the .net space. In 2.7.x was a dotnet-library directory, but it was in 2.8.x and trunk . Instead, there is the msil directory, which has some non-trivial things that happen quite recently: 4 months ago by rytz .

All available documentation seems to be out of date, but it might be worth telling one of the main participants what the current status is. Note that extempore (which already answered this over a year ago) seems to be one of them.