Where Java is a compelling choice to run server-side code due to its robust JVM that can be run anywhere, JavaScript is increasingly becoming the dominant choice on the client side due to its flexibility and light runtime-embedded environment as well as its growing set of tools already available in the browsers. Despite its popularity, JavaScript being a dynamic language does not offer the type of safety that languages such as Java or Scala provide. The experimental but fast-growing Scala.js initiative aims at compiling Scala to JavaScript and in my view offers a really good alternative for those who want to benefit from the power of the Scala type system all the way to the browser.

Setting up a project demonstrating the usage of Scala.js can be done in a couple of minutes and is explained in the sample "getting started" project available at https://github.com/sjrd/scala-js-example-app.

The example consists of a small HTML page containing a playground <div> element...