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

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/

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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