Scala: A History

Roots

Scala is a modern programming language designed and created by Martin Odersky. The design of the language started in 2001 and was released to the public in early 2004. Martin Odersky had a huge hand in the implementation of javac (the primary Java compiler) and also designed Generic Java, a facility of generic programming that was added to the Java programming language in 2004. This is why it doesn’t come as a surprise that Scala is similar to Java in many aspects, it’s actually written to run in JVM (Java Virtual Machine).

Scala’s design was influenced by multiple programming languages and ideas in programming research. In fact, Martin Odersky himself has stated that very few features of Scala can actually be labeled ‘new’, and in Scala, “innovation comes primarily from how its constructs are put together.” It was basically designed to be a “better language.”

A Multi-Paradigm Programming Language

Scala is a multi-paradigm language, which is just as much object-oriented as it is functional. But what does it mean for a programming language to be multi-paradigm?

Every language follows a set of rules or a pattern known as a paradigm and can be classified according to which paradigm it falls in. A paradigm characterizes the style, concepts, and methods of the language for describing situations and processes and for solving problems. Hence, each paradigm has a particular application it is best suited for.