This document provides an overview of Scala and compares it to Java in 3 sentences:
Scala is a multi-paradigm programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine and interoperates seamlessly with Java, combining object-oriented and functional programming in one concise, high-level language. Scala improves on Java with features like closures, pattern matching, traits, and immutable data while maintaining a familiar syntax; it compiles to Java bytecode and allows Java and Scala code to interoperate. Scala aims to be a better language for writing concurrent, parallel and distributed applications than Java with its support for actors, futures and software transactional memory.