Scala is a programming language that seems to be largely a fusion of Haskell and Java. As is the fad these days, it has its own web framework called lift. I spent some time working with Scala, and it appears to be a promising successor for Java. There is a growing, vocal community using it.
My attention was drawn back to Scala by Bruce Eckel's blog entry Java: Evolutionary Dead End. Quite a few people in the blogosphere share the view expressed in a blog entry by n8han, The awesomeness of Scala is implicit.
