Scala is great. Everything I've used of it says that it really is a better Java. However, it is also incredibly confusing to learn/use at times because it is s

Scala is great. Everything I've used of it says that it really is a better Java. However, it is also incredibly confusing to learn/use at times because it is still maturing and such. The tooling isn't as good as Java. The web frameworks for Scala are actually both awful and awesome. Lift is beautiful, but designed by a nerd and won't ever get Rails-like traction. Play is fantastic, but it's just as fantastic for Java, so it almost negates the desire for Scala... almost. Ultimately, Scala is a breath of fresh air largely because most of modern Java focuses so heavily on Java EE. Scala provides a clean break from that (if that is what you're looking for). Scala is going to be a niche JVM language. It will never reach the usage levels of Java/C#. It might hit Groovy levels of usage, maybe. I doubt it will ever be as big of a hit as Ruby/Python.