But one of the Scala drawbacks they cite is "arcane syntax". Another one is all the "advanced features" than can "weave a tangled web of code undecipherable to

But one of the Scala drawbacks they cite is "arcane syntax". Another one is all the "advanced features" than can "weave a tangled web of code undecipherable to even its authors". That's very much against the usual alleged benefits of Scala vs. Java that you've listed. That's why I was very interested in the article, a "real world" take on Scala that really felt doctrine-free.. but found it odd that they didn't mention anything about Java. Java would seem at first blush to solve all of the concerns they listed: compile time, arcane syntax, counterproductive advanced features, primitive IDE support, training needs. While at the same time preserving most of the benefits: type safety, concurrency with Play/Akka, JVM ecosystem. So it was just a little weird to not mention the elephant in the room.