On: Scala Center

[lmm]

I disagree. There are any number of failed JVM languages, and no non-JVM equivalent of Scala that I'm aware of. The biggest effect of the JVM on Scala was a "free" high-quality (and high-performance), multithreaded, garbage-collecting runtime (contrast with OCaml) which is an engineering-driven decision.

[mafribe → lmm]

Scala's success has technical and socio-economical causes. Here are some more non-technical factors.

- The existence of a reasonably well-funded organisation (Typesafe/Lightbend) stewarding Scala was well-received.

- Typesafe/Lightbend's independence also helped, in the sense that I cannot see a Scala-like language succeeded if it had come from e.g. Oracle.

- Scala's open-sourcing of everything helped.

- The well-executed and well-timed Scala-MOOC also helped a great deal.

- Odersky's fame and track-record helped too.

None of those might have driven your Scala adoption (or mine), but they might have helped others to shift their dev towards Scala.

[airless_bar → mafribe]

You realize that all of that (except the last point) happened after Scala got traction?

[mafribe → airless_bar]

That depends on what you mean by tracking. Typesafe was founded in 2011. Scala really took off around 2013 in my entirely unscientific observation.