I’ve noticed over time that Clojure users have nothing but massive enthusiasm for the language. Yet it seems most Scala users don’t even really care too much for the language. A few people have told me ‘It’s better than having to use Java.’. I’m not sure why Clojure has so much enthusiasm about it yet Scala has hardly any. It ruins any motivation that I have to learn to the language. I don’t care all that much for a language to use ‘Because it’s better than having to use Java.’. What do you think? I’ve not known about Scala long enough to measure how much the popularity has increased or decreased over time. What are your thoughts on the language? I’m especially interested in hearing from people who use the language.
Thanks.
EDIT: Obviously this post was more offensive than I intended. I’m not trying to put down either language, nor am I saying that Scala doesn’t have people behind it. I’m just saying that over time it seems to me that less people are enthusiastic about Scala as they are with Clojure for instance. I’m not making ‘Unjustified assumptions’ or making a ‘Dirty move in debate’ I’m just asking for theories.
If I had known this would cause so much dispute I wouldn’t have even wrote the thread. I apologize for any misunderstandings. I would last like to point out that I do like Scala, and Clojure. I’m learning Scala as we speak. Thanks for your posts, the parts with theories at least.
EDIT: September 30th: I do indeed apologize for any animosity I earned towards me. This question has been wildly misunderstood. I love Scala, and think it an amazing language. I was speaking from my own observations, and it appears my own observations were apparently wrong. You’re welcome to continue voting this question down, but I would delete it if I was capable of doing so, but I’m not.
I think there exist users who are pretty passionate about Scala. Daniel Spiewak writes a lot of blog articles about the language, and the Twitter people often talk about rewriting portions of their software in Scala. The big reason that Clojure may seem, in comparison, to generate more enthusiasm is because, well, Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and Lispers tend to be very passionate about their language. I think that idea is key: a lot of Clojure programmers use Clojure because they love Lisp, not because they hate Java, whereas a lot of Scala programmers (not all, but a lot) use Scala not because they love object-oriented functional languages, but because they don’t want to use Java.