An IDE for Scala
October 20, 2011 5 Comments
I have been working on Scala in my spare time for the past ~3 months now and I absolutely love it! It is extremely powerful, the syntax is sleek and it has an API for almost every basic operation!
My choice of IDE so far has been Eclipse which I am a big fan of while working in Java. Unfortunately, when it comes to Scala coding, the Scala plugin hangs up every now and then, the code assist does not like certain permitted formats so kind of enforces you to write code the way it understands it, the compiler blocks the user when code is saved (so I can’t type more code until the time it has completed compilation) and the code assist (ctrl + space) gives some very useless suggestions at times. It just didn’t work for me. So I tried other options – JEdit, Vim, and read about Netbeans and IDEA, all of them seem to have Scala support as a huge afterthought and hence is very insufficient.
So I started writing an IDE for Scala that I now call Slate. The intent is to have a simple tool that developers can code Scala on without the IDE being too intrusive. It should be light and quick – we don’t need a memory hog and neither do we need something that will be slow and start influencing the developer’s coding speed. At the same time, it should have all the basics that make coding easy and fast.
I am still actively developing Slate but you can check it out at github. As always, I would love to hear of some feedback and criticism. Also, I need some partners from the Scala community to contribute and make this the “right” IDE for Scala. Let me know if you are interested!
About Aishwarya Singhal
Hi Aishwarya,
It’s a shame that the Scala plugin for Eclipse didn’t work out for you, I wonder what version did you try.
Nowadays, most of the complains raised in your post have been largely mitigated. Code completion works well in almost every situation (even when using infix notation), and it is very rare that the whole IDE hangs (I can’t honestly remember last time it happened, and I tend to work on failry large Scala projects).
Anyhow, I think it is great you started to work on Slate, the more are the IDEs the better (both for the community and the language). Though, considering you are a big fun of Eclipse, I would encourage you to give the Scala plugin another chance. I would definitely love to hear what you think.
Btw, I’m one of the committers in the Eclipse Scala plugin project
Cheers,
Mirco
Hi Mirco
Thanks very much for your feedback, its great to hear from one of the committers on eclipse! I actually set it up earlier this year and it was eclipse helios with the plugin available in january. One of my friends has complained that I have been using too old a plugin too, so may be that’s the reason. It would be great to see the eclipse plugin get good because then I can do java as well as scala with equal ease in it
I’ll get a new copy and definitely try it out.
Incidentally, I am using eclipse to code Slate, it is still frustrating in my current set up but I understand I haven’t kept pace with its evolution
At the moment, (and this is just the over ambitious me), my intent is to do a Chrome with Slate – light, quick and designed for the new age technology that is Scala. But it is just me committing to it so far, so lets see how far I get with it
Best regards
Aishwarya
Wow, back in January it was indeed a long time ago! Probably, you were/are using one of the first 2.0.0-beta, if not version 1.0.0 (which was known to have some very bad issues). Please, use the latest beta or, if you are brave enough, a nightly
. They are usually failry stable. [http://download.scala-ide.org/]
I’ll check out Slave in the next few days, it definitely looks like an interesting project to look at! (ambition is good! this is how we create awesomeness
.
Keep in touch.
– Mirco
Ups, I’m deeply sorry for the really bad typo, I meant Slate.
no problem at all!