Creator of Scala: Comparing Languages And How AI Will Impact Them | Martin Odersky

About this episode

Martin Odersky is the creator of Scala and I interviewed him to compare different languages designs (Rust vs Zig vs Python vs Scala) and how AI will impact programming languages. • My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/ • The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done Podcast links: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/LdN4sPWM-WY • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/creator-of-scala-comparing-languages?r=n49ky Thank you to this episode's sponsors for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/ • Jira by Atlassian: Get more work done with your favorite agents and models all in one place, check them out at https://jira.dev/ Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:44) Why care about functional programming (06:35) Why should people learn Scala (09:26) Rust vs Scala (12:42) Rust vs Zig (15:45) Scala vs Python (18:31) The programming languages that influenced him (22:16) How running on the JVM works (26:33) Why writing a compiler is hard (29:19) Why Twitter adopted Scala early on (31:00) How he believes AI will impact programming languages (43:40) Will there be less engineers in ten years (44:34) Top programming languages to learn to grow (46:18) Top technical book recommendation (46:51) Why he chose academia instead of industry (48:28) Reflecting on Scala (55:42) Advice for his younger self (56:33) Outro Where to find Martin: • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Odersky • Website: https://people.epfl.ch/martin.odersky • X/Twitter: https://x.com/odersky • GitHub: https://github.com/odersky Where to find Ryan: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman Referenced in this episode: • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf • A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (book): http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html