On Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:39:29 -0400, Justin Johansson wrote: > People might remember that when I picked up D and joined this forum just > some 3 or so weeks ago I made mention of being a Scala refugee.*** When > asked what I didn't like about Scala I commented about there being too > many language constructs.
Compared to D that is not even true. The Scala language spec lists 40 keywords + 10 additional reserved tokens. D 2.0 spec lists 106 keywords + a bit over 60 reserved tokens. In general there are no features in Scala that are not built around those keywords and tokens. The keywords and token are not more heavily overloaded than in D, on the contrary in my subjective opinion. So how I see things is that the language core in Scala is about 75% smaller, faster to learn, and easier to reason about. I have to admit that the features often are more powerful than in D. You need to recognize concepts like contra/co/invariance, higher order functions and kinds, and algebra that is based on terms discussed in lambda calculus books.
