Performance problems like these early on in a product's adoption (yes, I know Scala isn't exactly new, but it still isn't widely used) can really give it a bad

Performance problems like these early on in a product's adoption (yes, I know Scala isn't exactly new, but it still isn't widely used) can really give it a bad reputation that is extremely hard to shake. I hope that they don't fall into the trap that the Mozilla folk have with Firefox. Although Firefox is still slow, it isn't as bad as it once was. Even after substantial effort and some moderate improvements, it still has a very bad reputation. I don't think it'll ever overcome this. The same could easily happen to Scala, if they aren't careful.