Bill Venners, President, Artima gives some pointers to Java Programmers on getting started in Scala Programming. Venners gave a talk “The Feel of Scala” at JavaOne describing some of the features and abilities of the Scala programming language.

Venners says that the reason a Java Developer would want to get involved in Scala is for productivity. The difference between Scala and other languages is that it is statically typed while providing the benefits of dynamic typing such as adding a new method to an existing class or type-safe duck typing.  The trade off between Scala and other languages is that when trying to refactoring larger applications in a dynamic language, the level of effort and complexity increases. This was Venner’s personal reason for choosing Scala as a language of choice.

The 4 Step Process for Getting Started in Scala Programming:

Step 1) Download Scala http://www.scala-lang.org/downloads
Step 2) Run the Installer: java -jar scala-2.7.5.final-installer.jar
Step 3) Run the Scala interpreter: bash$ $SCALA_HOME/bin/scala
Step 4) Write a Hello World Program: http://www.scala-lang.org/node/166

Further Reading:
Programming in Scala: http://www.artima.com/shop/programming_in_scala
Scala By Example: http://www.scala-lang.org/sites/default/files/linuxsoft_archives/docu/files/ScalaByExample.pdf