I like Scala as a language. I started using it in 2010 on an open source project (BigSense.io) and since then my Scala has improved considerably (improved meaning I&#x27;ve learned how to use the language a lot more efficiently).<p>If you want to get into it, get into it because you want a clean functional language on the JVM. That being said, some of the syntax in Scala ... oh god.<p>I really wish, before starting Scala, I had read through The Little Schemer and attempted either Scheme or Haskell. Functional programming is a different way of thinking.<p>You can use Scala as a cleaner Java, or you can really use a lot of the idioms in Scala to make cleaner, shorter and less error prone code.