[hocuspocus]

Scala 2's syntax is mostly Java/C-style with a few peculiarities.

Scala 3's optionally allows indentation based, brace-less syntax. Much closer to the ML family or Python, depending on how you look at it. It does indeed look better, but brings its share of issues.[1] Worse, a lot of people in the community, whether they like it or not, think this was an unnecessary distraction on top of the challenges for the entire ecosystem (libraries, tooling, ...) after Scala 3.0 was released.

- [1] https://alexn.org/blog/2025/10/26/scala-3-no-indent/

[still_grokking]

Just for context, a lot of people in the community think that this syntax change was the best thing that happened to Scala since its inception.

Also the silent majority thinks that the people who still lament over that change are just a very vocal minority.

Almost all Scala 3 code uses the new syntax, no matter how loud a few people cry. Similar situation to systemd on Linux…

[gedy]

My personal take is this would be like JavaScript adopting an optional Coffeescript[1] syntax. It's so different that it seems odd to make it an option vs a new language, etc.

[1] https://coffeescript.org/#introduction