[20andup]

I actually had the opposite experience. Yes, Scala takes some time to digest but I didn't find it particularly hard. I come from a C# background and Scala just makes things so much easier to code once you get the hang of it. On the other hand, I tried learning Go before picking up Scala. Something about it's handling of concurrency just didn't sit well with me. Perhaps it was because it was so different for C#. I never really got a good hold of it.

For me Scala has a little bit more upfront cost to learning (but if you come form Java and C#, it should almost be second nature) but the things you can do with it once you get a hold of it is amazing. Go (for me) on the other hand is very easy to write simple Hello World programs, but if you want to do complex applications, it has much more down payment.

[mclifton]

Agreed on the C# front. Outside of implicits, I feel like there was just the occasional google search to find what the equivalent LINQ method was in Scala. It took a couple of days to get it sorted out in my head, but I was able to jump in with Play Framework very quickly since everything was so similar to MVC/C#.

[llomlup]

I shared the same sentiment the first time I picked up Go. Coincidentally, we also share the same background (I've been a C# developer for years). However, I hold no longer the same sentiment toward Go. Yes, it forced me to think dramatically different than it was the case before, but nowadays Go is just a breeze to work with. Hence, I even do coding challenges in Go just because it's fun.