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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +layout: contact |
| 3 | +--- |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +# Minutes of the 31st meeting of the Scala Center, Q4 2023 |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +Minutes are [archived](https://scala.epfl.ch/records.html) on the |
| 8 | +Scala Center website. |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +## Summary |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +The following agenda was distributed to attendees: |
| 13 | +[agenda](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/main/agendas/031-2023-q4.md). |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +Center activities for the past quarter focused on Scala 3 features and |
| 16 | +compiler performance, Scala.js, the Scala Improvement Process, sbt 2, |
| 17 | +Scastie, Scala CLI, TASTy Query, Advent of Code, compiler sprees, |
| 18 | +Google Summer of Code, fundraising, and more. |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +Details are below and in the Center's activity report: |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +* [report](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2023-Q4-activity-report.html) |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +No new proposals were received this quarter. |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +## Date, Time and Location |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +The meeting took place virtually on Tuesday, February 7, 2024 at |
| 29 | +15:00 (UTC). |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +Minutes were taken by Seth Tisue (secretary). |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +## Attendees |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +Officers: |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +* Chris Kipp (chairperson) |
| 38 | +* Darja Jovanovic (executive director), EPFL |
| 39 | +* Sébastien Doeraene (interim technical director), EPFL |
| 40 | +* Martin Odersky (technical advisor), EPFL |
| 41 | +* Seth Tisue (secretary), Lightbend |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +Board members: |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +* Noel Markham, Xebia Functional |
| 46 | +* Paweł Marks, VirtusLab (subbing for Krzysztof Romanowski) |
| 47 | +* Claire McGinty, Spotify |
| 48 | +* Lukas Rytz, Lightbend |
| 49 | +* Daniela Sfregola, Morgan Stanley |
| 50 | +* Eugene Yokota, community representative |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +## Technical report |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +Seb, as interim technical director, summarized Scala Center activities |
| 55 | +since the last meeting. His remarks mainly consisted of brief |
| 56 | +highlights taken from the Center's more detailed Q4 quarterly activity |
| 57 | +report: |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +* [report](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2023-Q4-activity-report.html) |
| 60 | + |
| 61 | +And the Center's Q4 roadmap: |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +* [roadmap](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2023-Q4-roadmap.html) |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +The following notes do not repeat the contents of the report and |
| 66 | +roadmap, but only supplement them. |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +Martin offered congratulations to Eugene and the Center on getting sbt |
| 69 | +2.x initially compiling on Scala 3. Eugene mentioned that a number of |
| 70 | +"hacks" in the sbt codebase were no longer necessary on Scala 3, and |
| 71 | +that the new macro implementations were "safer" thanks to Scala 3. |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | +The Center declined to issue a ruling on whether Scala CLI is |
| 74 | +pronounced "Scala C.L.I." or "Scala Clee" :-) |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +Chris asked about broader Scalafix improvements, as previously |
| 77 | +discussed in 2021 when |
| 78 | +[SCP-027](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/main/proposals/027-refactoring.md) |
| 79 | +was submitted. Seb said that hasn't been revisited recently but |
| 80 | +they'll take a second look if there is sufficient engineering time |
| 81 | +available this year. |
| 82 | + |
| 83 | +Seth observed that Scalafix seems underused in the community, and |
| 84 | +although it's not clear why. It could be because it's not well |
| 85 | +integrated enough with tooling, and/or insufficient documentation and |
| 86 | +publicity? And do people know where to find rules? |
| 87 | + |
| 88 | +Branching off the Scalafix discussion, Eugene observed that we don't |
| 89 | +have good centralized documentation and recommendations on what |
| 90 | +compiler flags are available and which ones should be enabled (in |
| 91 | +general, and also in specific scenarios such as cross-building). |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +Chris praised the successful recent work on "quickfixes" in Scala 2. |
| 94 | +"I'm amazed how easy it is to trigger a quickfix and it makes me so |
| 95 | +happy every time it works." This connects to the Scalafix discussion |
| 96 | +because quickfixes and Scalafix overlap in purpose, and the compiler |
| 97 | +has information about user code that Scalafix may not. |
| 98 | + |
| 99 | +## Scala 2 report |
| 100 | + |
| 101 | +This was presented by Seth. |
| 102 | + |
| 103 | +At the time of the meeting, 2.12.19 was at the release-candidate |
| 104 | +stage, 2.13.13 was almost there, and the following forum threads were |
| 105 | +open for discussing the contents and timing of the two impending |
| 106 | +releases: |
| 107 | + |
| 108 | +* [Scala 2.13.13](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-13-13-release-planning/6315) |
| 109 | +* [Scala 2.12.19](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-12-19-release-planning/6216) |
| 110 | + |
| 111 | +After the meeting, the following threads were opened to discuss the |
| 112 | +next releases: |
| 113 | + |
| 114 | +* [Scala 2.12.20](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-12-20-release-planning/6580) |
| 115 | +* [Scala 2.13.14](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-13-14-release-planning/6581) |
| 116 | + |
| 117 | +The technical highlight of 2.13.13 is the introduction of |
| 118 | +`-Xsource:3-cross` as an alternative to `-Xsource:3`; the former is |
| 119 | +for crossbuilding, the latter for migration. |
| 120 | + |
| 121 | +## Community report |
| 122 | + |
| 123 | +Eugene led some brief discussion about the health of various segments |
| 124 | +of the community (Spark users, Typelevel, ZIO, Akka, and so forth). |
| 125 | + |
| 126 | +He also noted that his experience with co-organizing Scala Matsuri is |
| 127 | +that times are currently tough for conference organizers, especially |
| 128 | +in seeking sponsorship, likely because the job market in IT generally |
| 129 | +is weak, and sponsorship money is often motivated by recruiting. |
| 130 | + |
| 131 | +Darja said that she's very encouraged by all the signs she's seeing |
| 132 | +that conference and meetup activity are reviving, post-pandemic. |
| 133 | + |
| 134 | +Eugene also updated us on the health of the sbt plugin ecosystem. |
| 135 | +Many plugins have changed owners, dormant plugins are being revived, |
| 136 | +and many are now publishing to Maven Central. The Play and Pekko |
| 137 | +projects are among the drivers of this work. |
| 138 | + |
| 139 | +Chris asked the Center if a second community representative has |
| 140 | +been found yet. Darja says that a strong candidate has emerged |
| 141 | +and will hopefully join next quarter. |
| 142 | + |
| 143 | +## Management and financial report |
| 144 | + |
| 145 | +This was presented by Darja. Her report centered on fundraising. The |
| 146 | +Center is in need of new money, as a number of board members bowed out |
| 147 | +in 2023. The Center is pursuing various potential funding |
| 148 | +prospects. It seems that times are tough all over for open source |
| 149 | +funding. As part of bringing new members on board, some adjustments to |
| 150 | +the charter may be proposed, for example, to flexibly accommodate |
| 151 | +different sizes of company. Details remain to be seen. |
| 152 | + |
| 153 | +For practical reasons, and to the Center's regret, there is little |
| 154 | +likelihood of Scala Days happening in 2024. The Center is highly |
| 155 | +optimistic that it can be revived in 2025; doing that is a high |
| 156 | +priority. (There was a long discussion about various ways this |
| 157 | +might hypothetically play out.) |
| 158 | + |
| 159 | +There was also some discussion of what online services the Center |
| 160 | +should be using for publicity. One theme that came up is that some |
| 161 | +venues are better suited for interaction with the community, others |
| 162 | +best used only to broadcast announcements. |
| 163 | + |
| 164 | +## Conclusion |
| 165 | + |
| 166 | +We talked about what upcoming conferences we might see each other at, |
| 167 | +otherwise, see you online! |
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