"Constantly making waves" is probably more accurate from the days back when Tony Morris was active on the mailing lists. Paul, I believe, also made a fair bit of waves back in the day, but for some reason his were always much more palatable. (He has a very good writing style and is never, that I really remember, flat out mean.)

I guess the big waves I remember are essentially about a post a week from Tony. The hoopla around Colebourne's opinions on the language[1]. And then the mystery/whatever around Pollak's involvement in the community.[2]

The later point is odd just for how much traction lift seemed to be generating, and then the overall community appeared to reject it heavily. Do note that I would still recommend it. Their community is quite nice and helpful.

And I should definitely make clear that it is very possible I just don't see the waves in other communities. I don't really see Scala's anymore; this week being a notable exception. To me, though, high tension is not exactly a good environment. Heck, for all of the flack he gets, Torvalds is usually more cordial than many of the threads I remember from this community.

[1] http://blog.joda.org/2011/11/scala-feels-like-ejb-2-and-othe...

[2] http://blog.goodstuff.im/yes-virginia-scala-is-hard