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Scala is a modern programming language that combines the feature of Object Oriented language (Like JAVA, and C++) and Functional Programming (Like HASKELL) which makes it both unique and powerful. It was designed so that it would be scalable, expressive and concise. You don't have to write a verbose syntax like JAVA in Scala (Although knowing JAVA makes it far easier to learn Scala). Scala is made on top of JVM so all the methods that are available on JAVA will be available on Scala plus there will be more other methods. Scala is widely used in Big Data and other developments (like web development). Popular companies like Twitter and Coursera are written on Scala due to its flexibility and scalability.
History of Scala
Scala combination of "Scalable" and "Language" was developed by Martin Odersky in 2003. It is a statically-typed language that runs on top of JVM (Java Virtual Machine), so it coordinates seamlessly with JAVA. Since it is scalable and has a very expressive syntax, it has gained popularity and is widely used to develop large and complex projects nowadays.
Features of Scala
Object-Oriented Programming: Everything in Scala is an object. Even the operators we use like /, *, +, - are objects. It also supports all the OOP features. So, it won't be wrong if we say that Scala is more Object Oriented than JAVA.
Functional Programming: Scala inherits functional programming which allows developers to write code using functions as first class citizens. Higher order functions, immutability, and many powerful collections of APIs make it awesome to work with. It also supports features like lambda expressions, closures and pattern matching.
Type inference: Scala has type inference, meaning that you don't have to specify the variable, or function type when declaring. The compiler automatically infers the type of the function and variables. (But you have to specify the return type of the function if you are using recursion which you most likely will and If you want to specify the type then you can there is no boundary)
Semicolon: You don't need to give a semicolon at the end of each line to terminate the program. It works like Python where you can just indent the code. If you want to line multiple lines of code in a single line then a semicolon is a must.
Scalable: Scala is made to create highly scalable programs, So without any doubt, it is one of the most scalable languages out.
Pros
Although Scala supports OOP, we can write pure FP which makes the code fast, easy to debug and scalable.
We can build a highly stable concurrent system in Scala using the AKKA framework.
The code is more concise, expressive and less verbose making it easier to read for developers.
Since Scala runs on top of JAVA, its code run on any machine which supports JAVA.
The libraries and frameworks are growing rapidly.
Cons
It has a steeper learning curve, so it may be difficult to learn.
There are not so lot of resources there to learn Scala. There are limited resources and you need to grind a lot to learn things.
Since Scala programmer prefers to write code in FP, so many developers who are not familiar with the functional programming paradigm may find it confusing especially when side-effects are introduced.
Why you should learn Scala?
The reason is very simple, it is one of the highest-paid programming languages out there (according to stackoverflow 2023 survey). There is no doubt that Scala is going to be vastly used in the near future so learning it now will give you a kick start in the race. We can write a JS code from Scala since Scala supports scala.js, basically, TypeScript is the subset of JavaScript; Scala is the subset of TypeScript. So, you can do full-stack web development. AI is growing huge and basically, most people are ignoring the things that AI works on data and the data are also becoming huge and huge, so Scala is one of the most used languages for Big Data. Last but not least you get to experience both Functional Programming and Object Oriented Programming.