Does it make sense to write a forum in Scala? [closed]

Question

I'm looking for a meaningful task to learn Scala (something which is usable at the end and not only programming exercise), and I also have to make a forum, and I don't want to learn PHP... so I'm thinking about implementing an open source forum in Scala.

But does this make sense? Forums don't have high performance or scalability requirements... and also Java Hosting is more expensive, so even if my forum software is free, most people will not use it.

Am I missing use cases where forum written in Scala/Java makes sense, and is preferable over a PHP (or similar) forum?

I found for example this:

http://java-source.net/open-source/forum-software

But it seems to be abandoned, like stated here:

http://www.coderanch.com/t/497053/Ranch-Office/forum-has-been-built-JForum

So probably I'm correct that easy & cheap & slow is far more suitable for a forum = PHP?

Answer 1

I think an open source forum written in Scala would be useful if you can structure it in a way that makes it easy to integrate with existing web apps using the Lift and Play frameworks.

Your target audience should be anyone writing a web app in Scala who wants to tack on a forum. The prospect of using a php based solution won't be enticing to these developers, but neither will be reimplementing the wheel. You have a pretty compelling value proposition if you create a well written, easy to implement solution using the same stack that they are already leveraging.

Answer 2

It depends on the purpose of the exercise.

You want to learn Scala and need a project for exercise: Anything goes, so does a forum. But it would probably be more interesting to get involved in some existing open source project. Think about the 5 first libraries you would probably consider for a project (logging, testing, web framework) check them out, find one that is open for contribution. Grab a bug or feature request and try to implement it.

You want some forum Forget it. Use some existing solution.

Somebody forces you to write a forum If things like being hostable on almost arbitrary webspace isn't a requirement, go ahead use Scala.

You want to prove the power of Scala to yourself or somebody else Go for something more challenging (Big Data, Akka ...)