A New Scala Ethos - Scala Days 2025 talk by Daniel Ciocîrlan

Daniel Ciocîrlan argues that Scala needs a new philosophy centered around safety and ease of use rather than appealing only to FP purists.

Learn Scala with Projects: rockthejvm.com/courses/scala-projects The functional + object-oriented programming blend made Scala a success when it was first launched. However, Scala is not a new language anymore, and other languages (e.g. Java, Kotlin) added its most popular features, leaving Scala to differentiate itself only by its most powerful parts, such as contextual abstractions, higher kinds, type gymnastics, metaprogramming. Scala is therefore sometimes (and unfairly so) perceived as difficult, or not worth the switch, which is corroborated with my experience teaching at Rock the JVM. This perception, amplified by the ongoing work on developer experience, is a function of the current positioning, or philosophy, of Scala, which currently appeals to the FP purists. In this talk, we will argue that Scala needs and deserves a new philosophy, centered around code safety, ease of use, mental clarity and good habits. The ethos of Scala will directly imply how Scala evolves, what its priorities are, and most importantly, who it is for – and therefore will determine its chance to become the mainstream language it was meant to be.