Comment by jethroalias97 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jethroalias97 | Hacker News Reader

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After struggling through using sbt and Maven/Ivy I can say it is categorically worse than what I have used in other languages including ruby-gem python-pip clojure-leiningen (a jvm language) and node-npm. When I say worse I mean doing what the majority of developers want from a module system: easily install modules, not provide a complicated mess of configuration and versions.

This isn't to say scala couldn't adopt a better system, but I don't think the community has an incentive because scala's main appeal is that it has a steep learning curve, but after you get over the hump you can do everything you want and more. I just think that high barrier to entry, as indicated by the post, may not be worth the benefits.

Did you ever try buildr? I've never used sbt, as, coming from a Ruby background, the fact that buildr sits atop of rake appealed to me more than sbt. It uses maven repositories underneath the hood, but then again, as I understand it, so does clojure-leiningen.

Part of me thinks you're conflating two separate things: build systems and package repository systems. Even people who hate Maven's build system (myself included) tend to agree that Maven's package management system is really good, and as you like clojure-leiningen, you must agree in some sense.

Could you go into more detail about what problems you had with sbt? What you describe doesn't really match up with my experience. If you want to use it simply to compile Scala code you can just do 'sbt compile' in the directory containing the Scala files. If you want to add dependencies you just create a file called 'build.sbt' and add lines like:

  libraryDependencies += "org.scala-tools" %% "scala-stm" % "0.3"

Although this may not be clear since sbt presents 2 configuration methods, a simple one (as seen above) and a complex one.

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