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Google App Engine Adds Java Support, Groovy Meta-Programming
Zarf writes "Yesterday Google announced that the Google App Engine now supports Java development, and fast on the heels of the Java announcement is an announcement for Groovy support! Groovy is a dynamic programming language for the JVM that is a near super-set of Java. Much Java syntax is valid Groovy syntax, however, Groovy adds powerful meta-programming features, and the new functionality will bring these meta-programming features to App Engine development. Groovy got special attention from the SpringSource Groovy team and the Google App Engine Java team, and it was this collaboration that helped create the changes that were the big secret in the recent Groovy release of 1.6.1."
java is extremely efficient so I have no idea what you're talking about. It's far more efficient than python which is the original GAE platform. I know it's fashionable to bash java on /., but you should at least know what you're talking about. Or, are you suggesting that everyone write their web apps in C?
Still funny.
Groovy is to Java as PERL is to C. Many similarities, plenty of points of comparison, some interactivity, arguably some interchangeability. It is not a "super set" or even an extension. It's a new language, written in another language. It's a scripting tool, written in Java, that optionally generates Java for execution not in a Groovy engine.
It doesn't give you "compiled Java" any more than Java gives you compiled Java, and other tools (like gjc) give you native executables from software written in Java.
It's got good. It's got bad. It's new. It leverages old. If you're going to use it, you've got to learn it.
No magic, just different.
End the FUD