Guardian.co.uk is switching from Java to Scala. I’m surprised it took so long and that other Java shops are not following en masse — it could be because of how different and esoteric Scala can be, especially to Java programmers. The linked infoQ article contains an interesting discussion with the Guardian folks.
Programming enterprise web applications (or anything, for that matter) in Java is painful for anyone mature enough to have experienced the wealth and breadth of tools out there, given how primitive, verbose and unproductive it is, and how much it caters for the lowest common denominator of a programmer. That’s not to say that Scala is the best choice for everyone, let alone those not starting from scratch, but given the Guardian’s existing infrastructure and systems, I guess that it’s the best choice they could’ve made.
