Oddbean new post about login | logout @fd32800e I don't think we'll ever see Scala's implicit parameters or metaprogramming facilities. Or Kotlin's context receivers, or compiler plugins. This is because Java prefers runtime reflection, and even though GraalVM's native-image is now a problem, they'll rather do something to make runtime reflection more compatible, instead of introducing new ways of doing things. The more Java evolves, the more it stays the same. This is a strength (backwards compat 💪), but also a weakness.
@fd32800e And you can infer Java's direction from its history. Java, for better or worse, evolved in tandem with the runtime. This is in many ways a strength. E.g., Java's records have a semantic for the runtime that Scala's case classes cannot have. Virtual threads leave the language untouched, etc. Java is tied to the JVM, JVM improvements lift all boats, but Scala & Kotlin are free to directly target other platforms (JS, wasm, native), which also pushes them to compile-time solutions.