[adriaanm]

[Scala team lead at Lightbend here]

I'm always eager to learn how we can improve Scala, especially as we kick of the Scala 2.13 cycle (hard at work on compiler performance and standard library improvements). Email is 'adriaan.at("lightbend.com")

Regarding Scala's growth, I will leave you with https://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/q-scala.html.

[jonlawlor]

I don't think that Go is a good language to compare with Scala. (I do like Go, though.) The two languages could not be more different in philosophy. Scala is maximalist - you can do things many ways, you can call java, you can have tremendously intricate types, etc. Go is minimalist - there are just enough tools to get by, and sometimes it feels like you are missing one. My experience with Scala is that you spend more time telling it what to do but not how to do it (and it is often not obvious exactly how things will be done), while in Go you have to tell it both what and how to do things, which results in longer code, and repetition, but less ambiguity. You can't add to Scala to make it more like Go - the only way to make it more Go-like is to remove from it, which is impossible.

I think a more appropriate comparison for the language would be F#, which is probably not a surprise to you. I have never used Scala professionally, so I can't give any suggestions that would improve the use of Scala for day to day programming. Years ago I was learning 1 language per year, and picked up Scala and F# that way. After completing the Coursera courses on Scala, I put together a few projects on github using it, enough to get some job feelers that ignored my "don't send me job offers." And I realized that while I enjoyed fiddling around with the language on my own, I didn't want to spend my professional time deciphering other people's Scala code, and so I dropped it. Take from that what you will - maybe I am just not cut out for it.

I do use Go professionally, although it is a minority language where I work.

[adriaanm]

Thanks for your balanced reply. Sadly, some people see it as a badge of honor to write super clever code that's essentially write-only, and Scala somehow triggers this in them :-)

We, as the Scala community, play an important role in shaping the culture of programming in Scala as one that embraces simplicity as the true elegance, maintainability and testability, friendliness and openness to criticism. The language will remain flexible (though we're always looking to remove warts), it's really up to your company culture to decide how to use it (which is different for different teams over time).

Many big players, such as Twitter, have done a great job with that (and continue to do so).

[koevet]

For completeness:

https://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/q-scala-q-golang.html

[virtualwhys]

Well, more accurately would be to compare Scala to other languages[1] that operate in the same space (OO/FP).

[1] https://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/q-scala-q-haskell-q-ocaml-q...

[rubenv]

Or for those who don't call it "golang":

https://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/q-scala-q-golang-q-go.html

[jim_d]

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and the team at Lightbend. There is a clarity of thinking and expressiveness in Scala that I haven't found in other languages. I have used Scala professionally for the past 3 years and enjoy it immensely as a language.