If there are two equivalently capable paradigms, the one with the shallower learning curve will enjoy a positive feedback loop of learning resources and tooling. The result will be more people learning the arguably less elegant paradigm.

(This is my kinder version of “worse is better.”)

Taking my own 15 Exercises to Know A Programming Language as a starting point for my exploration of Scala...

The first set of exercises are right up the alley of a language with pattern-matching and list-processing:

Write a program that takes as its first argument one of the words ‘sum …