In my opinion, the tough part is that you need to truly understand each feature. Not just one use case. Although, once you do, you can really get to work compo

In my opinion, the tough part is that you need to truly understand each feature. Not just one use case. Although, once you do, you can really get to work composing the features in interesting ways to get really useful effects. Like implicits + higher-kinded types to get ad hoc polymorphism. Or subtyping + pattern matching to achieve incredibly self-descriptive business logic. I would certainly agree that Scala appeals to people who like to be able to experiment and engage with more theoretical concepts while getting things done. But let's not pretend that most languages don't have this issue. Programming with major Ruby and Python libraries tends to eventually require you to learn what's going on under the hood in the same way. I would argue that once you start digging under the surface, Scala is much more elegantly designed than those languages. Go is about the only language that seems to say, "forget theory, we're simply about getting things done". Not my thing, but I understand the appeal!