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Ask HN: Is anyone using the Ceylon programming language?

17 points by vosper ↗ HN
This language seems to tick a bunch of boxes for languages that are often discussed on HN:

- Runs on the JVM (like Kotlin, Clojure)

- And has a more advanced type system than Java (like Scala)

- Backed by a large software company: Redhat (like Go, Rust)

- In active development (v1.3.1 released in November)

It has an IDE (plugin) too. But no-one ever seems to mention this language - not even in threads where non-mainstream languages are being discussed.

So, is anyone using Ceylon? Or have you tried it out? What has been your experience?

https://ceylon-lang.org/

4 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 36.0 ms ] thread
boniface316
I like the name Ceylon...simply because of my nationality. I am going to follow this thread just to see what kind responds we will be getting here.
vosper
I also like the name :)

Unfortunately, without some upvotes from others I imagine this thread will be lost in the deluge of submissions :(

runT1ME
I like Ceylon a lot, and I think the creator has done an awesome job taking community feedback and integrating it into his vision. It's one of the few languages I'd be happy to work in day in and day out.

It doesn't really compete with Kotlin with being a barely better java. I don't think Kotlin really adds all that much compared to Java but it's stupid simple to learn so I can see some teams transitioning to it.

Scala on the other hand is not easy to learn, but very powerful and can be written as a fully functional language. It's awesome, it has some warts, but at this point it has so much momentum that people who want type system power + FP on the JVM are going to choose Scala. It has the libraries, it has a plethora of big companies using it, and it has plenty of jobs (check the HN hiring posts even).

Ceylon definitely improves a bit on Scala, but maybe not enough. That being said, I like seeing other 'powerful' languages thrive, so hopefully it will pick up a bit more adoption. Alternatively, Gavin and the team will just decide to help out the scala compiler development ;-)

vosper
Have you used the IDE at all? One of the things I liked about Ceylon is that they seem to think that having a good IDE is as important as having a good language - something I agree with. They're shipping plugins for IntelliJ and Eclipse, where a lot of other languages start off with an Emacs package, but don't go for the full IDE experience. Clojure would be an example of that, I think.