The article is suggesting that Scala is a better tool than Java for jobs similar to his. He spends about 80 slides arguing why (e.g. less code, business logic

The article is suggesting that Scala is a better tool than Java for jobs similar to his. He spends about 80 slides arguing why (e.g. less code, business logic doesn't get lost in implementation detail, more maintainable). Those are all benefits of Scala over Java, so what makes them less important than Actors and functional programming? (Notwithstanding the fact that some of those benefits are because of gradually introducing the more accessible functional programming constructs - like filter and Option.) That's like saying you shouldn't use Ruby unless you plan to write lots of DSLs and monkeypatch everything. Some people do those things with Ruby, and it's good at them, but it does other things too.