I run into many Scala fans amongst Java developers. It's the current shiny thing in that technology area. Good old Java (of a similar age to Perl) is usually what they're making their living doing...
Actually Perl 5 is older then Java by about a year (yes, Perl had OO support before Java even left the lab). But Perl itself is much older then Java, by several years.
Sucks to be them; I'm fortunate enough to do Scala professionally. I think "shiny" is unnecessarily dismissive; the productivity and safety advantages are real enough.
