Java is a general-purpose computer programming language that is concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, etc. Java applications are compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture.
Scala is a general-purpose, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language. It is a pure object-oriented programming language which also provides the support to the functional programming approach. There is no concept of primitive data as everything is an object in Scala. It is designed to express the general programming patterns in a refined, succinct, and type-safe way.
Below are some major differences between Scala and Java:
| Scala | Java |
|---|---|
| Scala is a mixture of both object oriented and functional programming. | Java is a general purpose object oriented language. |
| Scala is less readable due to nested code. | Java is more readable. |
| The process of compiling source code into byte code is slow. | The process of compiling source code into byte code is fast. |
| Scala support operator overloading. | Java does not support operator overloading. |
| Scala supports lazy evaluation. | Java does not support lazy evaluation. |
| Scala is not backward compatible. | Java is backward compatible means the code written in the new version can also run in older version without any error. |
| Any method or function present is Scala are treated like they are variable. | Java treats functions as an object. |
| In Scala, the code is written in compact form. | In Java, the code is written in long form. |
| Scala variables are by default immutable type. | Java variables are by default mutable type. |
| Scala treated everything as an instance of the class and it is more object oriented language as compare to Java. | Java is less object oriented as compare to Scala due to presence of primitives and statics. |
| Scala does not contain static keyword. | Java contains static keyword. |
| In Scala, all the operations on entities are done by using method calls. | In Java, operators are treated differently and is not done with method call. |
