Groovy experience ?

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Is there anyone else using groovy. I have been using it
to produce some reports involving large amounts of data.
It worked with some third party Java libs with no problems.

I am thinking of using it in larger projects, particulary GroovyServlet.

I wonder why do I not hear or read more about Groovy. Are
there any problems I am not a aware of ?

It looks like a great tool.....

DG
 
D

Danno

Dražen Gemic said:
Is there anyone else using groovy. I have been using it
to produce some reports involving large amounts of data.
It worked with some third party Java libs with no problems.

I am thinking of using it in larger projects, particulary GroovyServlet.

I wonder why do I not hear or read more about Groovy. Are
there any problems I am not a aware of ?

It looks like a great tool.....

DG

No, I haven't heard of any problems. I just think that the word of
mouth hasn't gotten around about it that much.
 
C

Chris Uppal

Dra¾en Gemiæ said:
I wonder why do I not hear or read more about Groovy. Are
there any problems I am not a aware of ?

I think that there's a problem with various languages designed to run on a JVM
rather cancelling each other's popularity out. There are Nice and Scala (both
of which look more interesting than Groovy to me). There are couple of very
Java-like scripting languages such as BeanShell. There's Hecl. And there are
probably more. Also there's competition from Jython and the like, which come
with a respectable claim to be a popular language in their own right.

Another reason is possibly that "Groovy" is an almost terminally uncool name --
it surpasses "Smalltalk" in that respect (no easy achievement), and very nearly
claims the crown from "Java Bean" as the Stupidest Name In Computing, Ever.

BTW, this article reviews several of the "alternative" JVM languages, and
rather hammers Groovy. I don't know how representative the author's views are
of the current state of Groovy development (or even if they were ever
representative, although I see no reason to doubt it).
http://www.cabochon.com/~stevey/sokoban/docs/intro.html

-- chris
 
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Chris said:
Dra¾en Gemiæ wrote:




I think that there's a problem with various languages designed to run on a JVM
rather cancelling each other's popularity out.

I was asking about technical problems, not "political", but thank you
for the feedback, anyway. I decided that I like Groovy already, but
I would not like to start a project and run into trouble because of
some undiscovered flaw.

The concept of multiple languages running in the same VM was endorsed
by .Net, and people seem to like it. I don't have the problem with
that, too. I like pragmatic approach....

There are Nice and Scala (both
of which look more interesting than Groovy to me). There are couple ofvery
Java-like scripting languages such as BeanShell. There's Hecl. And there are
probably more. Also there's competition from Jython and the like, which come
with a respectable claim to be a popular language in their own right.

I tried Jython, but Groovy offered better integration with Java. I was
able to mix Java lines and Groovy lines in the same source file.
Another reason is possibly that "Groovy" is an almost terminally uncoolname --
it surpasses "Smalltalk" in that respect (no easy achievement), and very nearly
claims the crown from "Java Bean" as the Stupidest Name In Computing, Ever.

I agree, it sounds more than stupid.

DG
 
D

David N. Welton

Chris said:
I think that there's a problem with various languages designed to run on a JVM
rather cancelling each other's popularity out. There are Nice and Scala (both
of which look more interesting than Groovy to me). There are couple of very
Java-like scripting languages such as BeanShell. There's Hecl. And there are
probably more. Also there's competition from Jython and the like, which come
with a respectable claim to be a popular language in their own right.

Various languages are designed to run 'on top of C', and that hasn't
hurt their popularity, although I suppose it's not possible to know how
things would have gone had there been only one language... I think that
while having too many choices does confuse people, and takes a little
bit away from everyone, that eventually the "market" is such that the
more popular and useful languages will rise to the top, and have enough
users and support that people will be able to happily use them if they
meet their needs.

--
David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/
 
C

Chris Uppal

David N. Welton wrote:

[me:]
I think that there's a problem with various languages designed to run
on a JVM rather cancelling each other's popularity out. [...]

Various languages are designed to run 'on top of C', and that hasn't
hurt their popularity, although I suppose it's not possible to know how
things would have gone had there been only one language... I think that
while having too many choices does confuse people, and takes a little
bit away from everyone, that eventually the "market" is such that the
more popular and useful languages will rise to the top, and have enough
users and support that people will be able to happily use them if they
meet their needs.

I agree up to a point. But there are a number of differences in the situation,
which I think rather make it harder for an alternative JVM language to
establish itself.

One is that languages like Perl or Ruby (still less "real" -- i.e. not
scripting -- languages) don't "run on top of C" in the same way that Groovy,
say, runs on top of the JVM. That largely restricts their potential audience
to Java programmers -- which reduces the size of possible "market". (It
doesn't /have/ to -- it would be possible to create a language which used the
JVM internally as an implementation technology, but didn't advertise the
fact -- I don't know of any examples of that, but I suppose Jython comes
closest.) That may, by pre-selecting the potential audience to only Java
programmers, also discourage diversity amongst the proposed alternative
languages -- and if they are all pretty-much the same, why choose one over
another ?

Secondly, for most languages which run over the JVM, a major point is access to
the very extensive Java class libraries which already exist. Hence
interoperability with Java code is pretty much a requirement -- this limits the
space that such languages can live in, and thus reduces the distinctions
between them (or at least reduces the perceived distinctions). To some extent
this point overlaps with the previous one, in that it maybe explains why
languages with "hidden" JVMs don't seem to exist.

Another potential point is that such languages will always have big brother
Java looming over them. That shouldn't affect languages which are intended to
be pure scripting languages much -- any more than "big brother" C impedes Ruby.
But for languages that purport to be suitable for large scale development (Nice
and Scala, I think are in this space), then they have a problem in establishing
a competitive advantage over Java. Personally I'd rather try to persuade
people that my new pet language was a significant improvement over C (or C++)
than over Java -- especially if nearly all of my library functionality was
implemented in Java.

A contrary point, which has only just occurred to me. We may only now be
seeing a time when there is a significant population of programmers who /only/
know Java, or who learnt Java first, and know that language best. For them,
the C-derived conventions of some existing scripting languages may seem odd,
and more Java-like languages more attractive (especially as they come with the
familiar Java libraries). So perhaps the heyday of JVM-based scripting
languages is soon to be upon us.

If I were trying to push my pet scripting language, I would be trying very hard
to persuade the Eclipse, Netbeans, etc people to include my language as the
automation language for their IDEs, and -- ideally -- to rewrite the outermost
"glue" code of those IDEs in my language.

-- chris
 
D

David N. Welton

Chris said:
David N. Welton wrote:
I think that there's a problem with various languages designed to run
on a JVM rather cancelling each other's popularity out. [...]
Various languages are designed to run 'on top of C', and that hasn't
hurt their popularity, although I suppose it's not possible to know how
things would have gone had there been only one language... I think that
while having too many choices does confuse people, and takes a little
bit away from everyone, that eventually the "market" is such that the
more popular and useful languages will rise to the top, and have enough
users and support that people will be able to happily use them if they
meet their needs.
I agree up to a point. But there are a number of differences in the situation,
which I think rather make it harder for an alternative JVM language to
establish itself.
One is that languages like Perl or Ruby (still less "real" -- i.e. not
scripting -- languages) don't "run on top of C" in the same way that Groovy,
say, runs on top of the JVM. That largely restricts their potential audience
to Java programmers -- which reduces the size of possible "market". (It
doesn't /have/ to -- it would be possible to create a language which used the
JVM internally as an implementation technology, but didn't advertise the
fact -- I don't know of any examples of that, but I suppose Jython comes
closest.) That may, by pre-selecting the potential audience to only Java
programmers, also discourage diversity amongst the proposed alternative
languages -- and if they are all pretty-much the same, why choose one over
another ?

Sure, it restricts the size of it, but Java's pretty popular, so I think
there's still lots of room out there.

As far as 'diversity', speaking for myself, with Hecl I am taking the
approach, to some degree, that I want it to be different from Java. I
want to make it easier for more people to program cell phones, and make
it faster for good programmers. And part of how I want to accomplish
that is by making a language that, at times, takes a different road than
Java does. So... I think there is some space for people doing stuff
that's 'different'. Enough systems are written in Java that providing
alternative means to access them is likely to, in some cases, extend the
audience.
Secondly, for most languages which run over the JVM, a major point is access to
the very extensive Java class libraries which already exist. Hence
interoperability with Java code is pretty much a requirement -- this limits the
space that such languages can live in, and thus reduces the distinctions
between them (or at least reduces the perceived distinctions). To some extent
this point overlaps with the previous one, in that it maybe explains why
languages with "hidden" JVMs don't seem to exist.

With any "higher level" language that's built on top of/written in
another language, you want to provide relatively easy access to the
lower layer...
Another potential point is that such languages will always have big brother
Java looming over them. That shouldn't affect languages which are intended to
be pure scripting languages much -- any more than "big brother" C impedes Ruby.
But for languages that purport to be suitable for large scale development (Nice
and Scala, I think are in this space), then they have a problem in establishing
a competitive advantage over Java. Personally I'd rather try to persuade
people that my new pet language was a significant improvement over C (or C++)
than over Java -- especially if nearly all of my library functionality was
implemented in Java.

Agreed - I think that if you were drawing a graph, with assembler being
low level, then C, Java would be higher up, which means that the
scripting language has less room to breathe in, so to speak. In a
system like C/Ruby, one language doesn't have GC, OO, and lots of other
handy things.
A contrary point, which has only just occurred to me. We may only now be
seeing a time when there is a significant population of programmers who /only/
know Java, or who learnt Java first, and know that language best. For them,
the C-derived conventions of some existing scripting languages may seem odd,
and more Java-like languages more attractive (especially as they come with the
familiar Java libraries). So perhaps the heyday of JVM-based scripting
languages is soon to be upon us.

Java's going to be with us for a while yet, so I'd say that, yeah,
there's still plenty of room to explore.
If I were trying to push my pet scripting language, I would be trying very hard
to persuade the Eclipse, Netbeans, etc people to include my language as the
automation language for their IDEs, and -- ideally -- to rewrite the outermost
"glue" code of those IDEs in my language.

That's a smart strategy. With Hecl, I chose a different niche to write
to - mobile phones, but I think you definitely have to have "an angle".
Without that, you're stuck simply trying to convince people that your
language is 'better', which isn't going to fly with a lot of folks.

Ciao,
--
David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/
 

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