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: read.compose.llc
• The Kickstarter page for it: kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose…

Podcast links:

• YouTube: youtu.be/LdN4sPWM-WY
• Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod…
• Transcript: developing.dev/p/creator-of-scala-comparing-la…

Thank you to this episode's sponsors for supporting my work:

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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: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Odersky
• Website: people.epfl.ch/martin.odersky
• X/Twitter: x.com/odersky
• GitHub: github.com/odersky

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: developing.dev
• X/Twitter: x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman
• Threads: threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

Referenced in this episode:

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf
• A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (book): james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplet…