Scala can be a fine Java replacement, if you drop 20% of its features on the floor. As long as you never see a higher-kinded type, I think you are ahead of Kotl

Scala can be a fine Java replacement, if you drop 20% of its features on the floor. As long as you never see a higher-kinded type, I think you are ahead of Kotlin, and the learning curve is not really any different. The problem with this approach is that 90% of Scala libraries are built by people that live in higher-kinded land, and believe that since they have reached that level of expertise, so should everyone else, the second they start learning the language. For instance, look at SummingBird: The hello world example includes F bounded polymorphism, and path dependent types! Anyone new to the language would run away screaming, and I'd not blame them.