Scala & Java Interoperability

Abstract

In this chapter, we will look at the interoperation of Java and Scala. Both Java and Scala are JVM byte code languages. That is, they both compile to the byte code language that is understood by the JVM. The byte code language of the JVM was originally designed to be the compiled form of Java and was what the Java Virtual Machine executed. However, things have evolved such that today the JVM is a virtual environment for executing byte code languages. In fact, there are now several languages that can be compiled to JVM byte codes including Java, Groovy, Clojure, Jruby, Jython, JavaScript, Ada, Pascal as well as Scala. A common term used for these languages is that they are all byte code languages.