<p><pre><code>    val label = &quot;The width is &quot;
    val width = 94
    val widthLabel = label + width
</code></pre>
I really wish more languages would distinguish concatenation from addition, <i>especially</i> when they do type coercion.  There&#x27;s a very specific reason Perl opted for &#x27;.&#x27; to concatenate strings instead of +, which is that it disambiguates  the following:<p><pre><code>    val first = &quot;2&quot;
    val second = 3
    val together1 = first + second
    val together2 = second + first
</code></pre>
Not to mention, addition is commutative and concatenation is not (1+2 == 2+1, but &quot;one&quot; + &quot;two&quot; != &quot;two&quot; + &quot;one&quot;)<p>Hopefully Scala at least has some very well defined and <i>easy</i> rules for exactly how string concatenation works, but I think it&#x27;s an uphill battle to argue that &#x27;+&#x27; is a good concatenation operator.