Using Scala to handle exponential growth at a startup

Its nice to see another shop switching to Scala. I have been advocating the same change where I work ( currently PHP and really feeling the pinch of what it can do ). Looks like I now have another data point to use as a success story for transitioning away.

A bit off-topic but I'm curious what people familiar/experienced with other Java web app frameworks think of the Play framework?

I don't really feel like they actually get into the specifics of how scala actually benefited them outside of what everyone already knows about scala from a really high level.<p>Bummer. I'm using scala at a small startup.

Since Scala is also a JVM language, from scalability perspective can someone expand on what it offers that Java, or any other JVM language, doesn't.<p>I'm not asking about language semantics since I believe that to be a personal preference, rather scalability and performance.

Would love to see a more detailed post on how Scala helps you specifically.

I'm so confused. Some diagramming app no one has heard of has to scale to 'exponential' growth and figure out:<p>* [not] loading a lot of session data on every request<p>* storing data across shards<p>* parallel processing<p>* a services approach<p>Wow, I think something is over-architected.<p>Curious: does exponential growth mean 2 concurrent users to 4? If they have more than 100 concurrent users, I would be highly skeptical.<p>And, if they can't solve that problem with <i>any</i> language, I would also be highly skeptical.