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# Minutes of the 27th meeting of the Scala Center, Q4 2022
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Minutes are [archived](https://scala.epfl.ch/records.html) on the
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Scala Center website.
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## Summary
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The following agenda was distributed to attendees:
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[agenda](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/agendas/027-2022-q4.md).
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Center activities for the past quarter focused on in-person events
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(conferences, summits, sprees, meetups, and workshops), online events,
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preparing the Center's 5-year report, fundraising, Metals and its
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debugger, sbt plugin publishing, Scala 3 language improvements, the
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Scala 3 compiler, the Scala Improvement Process, the Scala Toolkit,
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Scala.js, TASTy-Query, TASTy-MiMa, the Scala websites, the EPFL
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Extension School partnership, Advent of Code, Scala 3 Compiler
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Academy, Scastie, Bloop, Coursier, and process automation for Center
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activities.
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Details are below and in the Center's activity report:
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* [report](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2022-Q4-activity-report.html)
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No new proposals were received this quarter.
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Other business discussed included community representatives,
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coordination around tooling, the 2022 Scala Survey, and company
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overviews for Lunatech and VirtusLab.
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## Date, Time and Location
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The meeting took place virtually on Monday, January 16, 2023 at
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12:00pm (UTC).
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Minutes were taken by Seth Tisue (secretary).
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## Attendees
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Officers:
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* Chris Kipp (chairperson)
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* also board member, representing Lunatech
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* Darja Jovanovic (executive director), EPFL
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* Julien Richard-Foy (technical director), EPFL
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* Martin Odersky (technical advisor), EPFL
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* Seth Tisue (secretary), Lightbend
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Board members:
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* Diego Alonso, 47 Degrees
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* Michel Davit, Spotify (filling in for Claire McGinty)
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* Graham Griffiths, Goldman Sachs
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* Krzysztof Romanowski, VirtusLab
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* Lukas Rytz, Lightbend
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* Daniela Sfregola, Morgan Stanley
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* Eugene Yokota, community representative
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Affiliate members:
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* Piyush Rana, Knoldus
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Piyush Rana introduced himself. He's representing Knoldus, an
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affiliate member of the Center. Knoldus is a company of about 400
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people, with about 100 Scala developers. Piyush based in Toronto,
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leading the company's Scala division there. Knoldus was recently
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acquired by NashTech.
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## Management report
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This section was presented by Darja.
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Twitter and Databricks are leaving the Center's advisory board.
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Eugene Yokota, previously the Twitter representative, is now a
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community representative on the board.
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Darja highlighted the Center's continuing return to involvement with
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in-person events, under the improved COVID-19 situation. In Q4, Center
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staff participated in the Scala.IO conference in Paris and meetups in
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Warsaw and Lausanne. The Center is organizing a Scala Tooling Summit
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in Lausanne, to be held near the end of Q1 2023.
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The Center also led or co-led online events such as ScalaCon and the
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Scala Advent of Code.
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Darja and Adam Goodman gave a keynote, "Towards a Healthy and
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Resilient Scala Community", at ScalaCon. It is available [on
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video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svWnwU5PXxE).
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At the time of the meeting, the Center's five-year report wasn't quite
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ready, but a few weeks later it went online
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[here](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/first-five-years/).
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Internal training in moderation is still in progress and it is still
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planned to offer a version of this training externally.
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Staffing changes: Chris Kipp has joined the Center for a stint of at
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least three months, thanks to the sponsorship of Lunatech. Guillaume
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Martres has joined the Center as a staff engineer. He is already well
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known to the community for his years of work on the Scala 3 compiler
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as part of Martin's lab (LAMP).
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Financial report: The Center's funding for the year of 2022 came 44.2%
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from 2022 memberships, 20.4% from 2021 memberships, 25.8% from MOOCs,
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7.8% from EPFL, and 2.0% from donations. Expenses were 91.2%
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salaries, 6.3% governance, and 1.4% travel and events, and 1.1%
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extension school expenses. The Center has a small negative balance
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entering 2023, due to MOOC revenues which are delayed in arriving.
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The Center's key work areas for 2023 are:
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* Technical and educational infrastructure
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* Governance infrastructure
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* Involving stakeholders
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* Leveraging community contributors
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## Technical report
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This section was presented by Julien. He presented highlights of the
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Center's technical activities for the whole year of 2022, not just Q4,
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and also showed an annual roadmap for the whole year of 2023.
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Here are the slides:
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* [2022/2023 slides](./january-16-2023-annual-roadmap.pdf)
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The slides are a condensed summary of the following blog post that
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Julien published a few weeks after the meeting:
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* [2022/2023 blog post](https://scala-lang.org/blog/2023/01/31/scala-center-2023-roadmap.html)
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For shorter-term review and shorter-term goals, please consult the
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Center's quarterly activity report:
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* [report](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2022-Q4-activity-report.html)
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And the Center's 2023 Q1 roadmap:
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* [roadmap](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2023-Q1-roadmap.html)
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These documents are not summarized here in the minutes.
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A board member suggested consolidating documentation under fewer
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domains. Currently learning materials are spread across multiple
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domains: scala-lang.org, docs.scala-lang.org, the Metals site, the
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Scala-CLI site, etc. The splits reflect the different histories of
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different tools and the different groups that produce them, but such
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splits can be confusing to newcomers.
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There was some discussion about ongoing support for both Scala 2
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and Scala 3.
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## Proposals
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No new proposals were received this quarter.
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## Scala 2 report
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This was presented by Lukas.
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At the time of the last board meeting, Scala 2.13.10 had just come
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out. This release has proved stable, so Lightbend doesn't see a need
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to rush 2.13.11 or 2.12.18 releases. They are expected to follow
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in Q2, in accordance with the usual release cadence.
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After the meeting, the following Discourse threads for discussion and
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updates on release timing were opened:
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* [Scala 2.13.11](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-13-11-release-planning/6088)
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* [Scala 2.12.18](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-12-18-release-planning/6089)
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The Lightbend team continues to work on keeping Scala 2 and 3 aligned
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where possible, for example via the `-Xsource:3` compiler option. The
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team also works on supporting migration from 2.12 to 2.13.
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In December Lukas submitted
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[SIP-51](https://github.com/scala/improvement-proposals/pull/54),
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"Drop Forwards Binary Compatibility of the Scala 2.13 Standard
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Library", which proposes making it possible to make additions to the
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Scala 2 standard library by relaxing the forward compatibility
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restraint we've long had. An immediate motivation would be to allow
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tweaks like adding optimized implementations of certain collections
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methods, but larger changes could also be considered.
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## Other business
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### Community representatives
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Chris gave an update on the process of finding community
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representatives for the board, after Rob and Bill stepped down. He
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said a committee gathered a list of candidates but many of them
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couldn't accept, for various reasons. But Eugene accepted, and the
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community was notified by this [blog
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post](https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2023/01/10/new-ab-community-rep.html).
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Eugene made remarks in favor of continued support and attention for
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Scala 2, and for ongoing attention to applying Scala to particular
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application areas and not just as a general-purpose language. He
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observes that people and companies often come to Scala out of interest
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in a particular frameworks or usage scenario, rather than interest in
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the language per se. He also mentioned that improved support for JDK
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11 and 17 in tooling could use attention.
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### Tooling
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As mentioned in Darja's report, the Center is organizing an in-person
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Scala Tooling Summit in Lausanne, to be held near the end of Q1 2023.
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Chris mentioned that the summit plan grew out of a series of online
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meetings that the Center has organized recently between Center and
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VirtusLab engineers, the JetBrains Scala plugin team, and other groups
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and individuals working on Scala tooling. He didn't have concrete
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results to share yet but said that he expected the summit to result
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in materials that would be shared with the community.
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### 2022 Scala survey
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The results of the 2022 Scala developer survey were published in a
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[December blog
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post](https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2022/12/14/scala-developer-survey-results-2022.html).
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Several board members found it concerning that not many developers
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with only a year or two of Scala experience responded to the
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survey. Does that reflect selection bias in survey respondents, or is
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it evidence that we aren't doing enough to bringing new developers
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into the community? Someone pointed out that the survey data doesn't
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clearly indicate how people _came_ to Scala; what were they doing
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before?
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But what concrete action could or should the Center take? Perhaps the
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publicity and resources the Center provides could put more emphasis on
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the specific use cases, frameworks, and stacks that actually exist in
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industry.
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The Scala 3 usage numbers in the survey may seem surprisingly high,
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since we know that the largest companies using Scala have yet to
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migrate. Martin said he believes that the survey numbers reflect the
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popularity of Scala 3 at startups and smaller shops, and that it's
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normal for adoption of newer technology at large enterprises to
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lag. "There's another world out there," he stated. There was some
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discussion around these issues.
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### Company overviews
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Chris presented an overview of Scala usage at Lunatech and by its
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customers.
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Krzysztof presented something similar for VirtusLab; his remarks were
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based on these [slides](./january-16-2023-virtuslab.pdf).
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## Conclusion
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As was usual through 2019, we hope to hold an in-person board meeting
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later this year in conjunction with Scala Days.

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### Board meeting minutes
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- [January 16, 2023 - Twenty-Seventh SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2023/01/16/january-16-2023.html)
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- [October 12, 2022 - Twenty-Sixth SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2022/10/12/october-12-2022.html)
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- [June 28, 2022 - Twenty-Fifth SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2022/06/28/june-28-2022.html)
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- [April 8, 2022 - Twenty-Fourth SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2022/04/08/april-8-2022.html)

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