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Your Thoughts on the Groovy Scripting Language?
lelitsch asks: "Does anyone have first hand experience with Groovy?
I am just coming off implementing a Plone-based intranet CMS and got hooked on scripting languages and Python all over again. Since most of my projects in the near future are going to be in Java or have large Java components, I was wondering if it's time to trade Jython--which seems to be falling further behind the Python release cycle--for something else. Groovy sounds like a fun thing to look at, but it seems a bit new and thin. Also, what are other languages (JRuby and Rhino, for example) you have used to script in Java?"
Who cares if Jython is a little behind CPython if it already has all the features you need at this point? When I do work with CPython, I work from a relatively old edition of O'Reilly's Python in a Nutshell as reference, and find that the language at version 2.0 already does everything I need it to. While features added at 2.2 and 2.4 are undoubtedly useful for certain audiences, the language itself was complete for most purposes some time ago, and Jython should serve most people fine.
From what I've seen, Groovy's a half-baked programming language and unfinished product. See this criticism for a start.
If you want to do embedded scripting in Java, I suggest Bean Shell instead. As a library, Bean Shell is about 280K, Groovy is about 1.7M. And Bean Shell has been around for a lot longer.
I'd like to see Sun add closures and better support for lists/maps in Java itself (e.g. a map function). I'm hoping that pressure from Ruby will make the language grow. C# already made them change their mind about Generics.
I think you always need a reason before you try something new and unproven. If it is an enterprise app, why? Is there a feature that Python et al. does not do? If you have no experience with it, and no good reason to switch - Why bother?
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
for lightness and performance. At least as far as scripting languages go. I can't say I'm a fan of Java but if you insist:
There is Java/Lua integration in the form of JLua and LuaJava. Possibly other tools as well.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
I pronoune it D-rulez for that very reason. Then I throw up some gang signs.
A language doesn't have to be updated every 20 seconds to be good. If you started off working in JPython, I don't understand why you would switch it out for a less supported, and less developed language. Python has been kicking around for a while, enough time that they got most of the major kinks out long ago, so I don't think "falling behind in the development cycle" is as crucial as you might think it is. Why not stay with what works unless you specifically REQUIRE the new version's functionality? People are too quick to be trendy with languages...
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.