[cowardlydragon]

NOPE.

Ruby doesn't offer one of Groovy's killer features: optional static typing.

And Scala... far too alien and complex. There was some talk out there by one of the original Scala dudes talking about how there are something like 30 different fundamental types in Scala.

Groovy offers the most accessible functional programming paradigms to Java programmers. It is a sweet spot.

[jfoutz]

I loathe the "it's to hard" argument. I understand it, and it always makes sense. But it's like a drug. So many organizations fall prey to refusing to adapt until it's too late.

That said, it sounds like Groovy is a great fit for your organization.

[pjmlp]

Since my dabble with Groovy for a JSF framework back in 2009, I never really used it, except now that Google is forcing it on me.

From a few talks I have watched on the internet, it actually seems that Groovy is trying to adopt every language feature, like being lost while looking for new a direction kind of.

Kind of trying to stay relevant in a world of Scala, Clojure, Ceylon, Kotlin, js_ocaml, who knows what.

Maybe I am completly wrong, this was my impression after seeing recent videos.

[revscat]

Well, I actually like Groovy, and was trying to keep my personal opinion out of my original post. The fact remains, though, that whatever strengths Groovy has as a language it has struggled to gain significant traction.

[coldtea]

>The fact remains, though, that whatever strengths Groovy has as a language it has struggled to gain significant traction

Compared to what? JRuby? Groovy's adoption, from the number's I've seen, walks all over JRuby's.

It's just that the Java world is not fashionable (besides say Clojure) and you don't often hear from the people who use Groovy in their enterprise projects, whereas 10 startups using the language-du-jour can create the impression that it's the hot shit on HN.

[pjmlp]

No, but you do get presentations at local JUG and those have been pretty empty of Groovy content in the last years.

[coldtea]

I think people that go to JUGs and people that do enterprise development are entirely different species...

[lostcolony]

That was not at -all- my experience when I went to one in Atlanta. I and one other guy were the only ones in t-shirts; every single other person was in polo and khakis at least, with quite a few dress shirts and suits. Pretty sure it was mostly dominated by enterprise. Admittedly, that was my one and only experience with one; it was sufficiently enterprise-y and uninteresting for me that I never went back.

[pjmlp]

In Germany JUG are all about enterprise.

[mgkimsal]

IME, the strengths were primarily that it was Java+. However, the Java-heavy organizations that might most benefit from it tended to also be the most averse to change. Changing "that much" for "only" incremental change wasn't worth the risk for risk-averse companies. The companies that weren't risk averse tended to try it, but also go outside the JVM altogether when appropriate. So... in a way it was too good at just being a more useful Java, but that wasn't enough for Java-heavy shops.

[Gurkenmaster]

I haven't tried Groovy but in my opinion Ceylon strikes a nice balance between Scala and Java.