Bringing Scala into my company

Question

Now i know that this one is actually not a very technical question but one that has been bothering me for some time. Actually we are using a lot of C++ and PHP at our company and some of our developers are really hoping for a new and modern language to come by to help us getting more productive. I have been talking about what scala can do and the other coders seem to gain some interest in the language. The tough job is, how do you convince your boss to consider scala as a language for the company. I saw the presentation "Sneaking Scala into your company", but it deals with the situation that you are using Java at your company which we don't.

How do you fight of the usual "that is just esoteric stuff" and "we can already do that in $LANGUAGE" arguments. I was planing to give a talk about Scala, and since I don't have much time I need ideas how to get people interested in the language rather then setting of reactions like "currying? we can already do something like this with boost::bind".

How did you guys do it?

Regards, raichoo

EDIT: Gave my talk yesterday, people were very excited. My company is going to give it a try! Thanks for all your suggestions.

Answer 1

If you don't already have killer arguments, what are you basing your reasoning on that Scala will make your company more productive?

Don't like something then hunt for reasons to use it at work. Let the reasons speak for themselves..

"A hammer looking for nails"

Answer 2

Using it to do some stuff around the side, as datamigrations, testing and similar things will make sure the necessary experience is built and can give it some exposure.

ScalaTest is really nice to help with acceptance/integration testing. (Yes, I know it is nice for unit testing, but I do not see that immediately happening with C++/PHP target code, and it would probably be unwise).

Proof of Concept and other Prototypes are great for 2 reasons

1) It showcases the capabilities

2) You are certain they will be thrown away if you have to reimplement them in C++/PHP

Now a bad time to introduce Scala would be when you REALLY need it : hopes will be high, it will not immediately work as intended, hopes are dashed and everybody will blame Scala. As a result it will be burnt for a long time in the organisation.

Sooner or later some suit will think it was his idea to introduce Scala and use it on a formal project. If that project is moderately successful, then it is sold.

These kind of changes are complicated people issues, and the harder you push, the harder you will face push-back. On the other hand the persistent mind can move mountains.