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Is Groovy really a contender? It is a decent language, but it's development sucks. Maybe I'm missing something. I use it for Jenkins pipelines and it does not

by neves 7y ago

Is Groovy really a contender? It is a decent language, but it's development sucks. Maybe I'm missing something. I use it for Jenkins pipelines and it does not even has an editor with code completion. I must run it through an interpreter to find simple syntax errors, like a missing parenthesis. Looks like I'm developing in the 80's.

preommr 7y ago
I am 99% sure intellij idea has syntax validation and autocomplete for groovy.
- haspok 7y ago
  It does, but it highlights many things as issues which compile just fine.
haspok 7y ago
The Groovy compiler feels like a half-baked product, just as the language. It cannot decide if it wants to be a statically typed language or a dynamic one. It happens all too often that I have to manually cast stuff because the compiler cannot deduct the type of an expression. Seriously, it feels like writing Java pre-1.5 (before Generics). At the same time, your code might just compile, and you'd get a runtime error because you forgot to rename an attribute that you referenced, and due to some dynamic wizardry Groovy tries to retrieve it anyway. It is the very opposite of the Erlang universe, where the more time I spent the more impressed I got. So really no comparison between the two, forget Groovy if you have more than a toy project. Java on the other hand... will soon have it's fibers thanks to Project Loom...
- zmmmmm 7y ago
  > your code might just compile, and you'd get a runtime error because you forgot to rename an attribute The eclipse plugin has a pretty good approach in that it underlines things that cannot be deterministically type checked (that is: it can't prove they are wrong, but it can't prove they are right). It does a fair bit of type inference, so once you get used to that it's reasonably low amount of pain that comes from this type of problem.
zmmmmm 7y ago
> I use it for Jenkins pipelines and it does not even has an editor with code completion. I must run it through an interpreter to find simple syntax errors, like a missing parenthesis It's sad that so many people form their perception of Groovy from what they encounter inside Jenkins. I do full application development with it inside Eclipse and it is fantastic. None of the above applies. It's basically the same as developing in Java just 30% of the code size.

by neves 7y ago

preommr 7y ago

I am 99% sure intellij idea has syntax validation and autocomplete for groovy.

haspok 7y ago
It does, but it highlights many things as issues which compile just fine.

haspok 7y ago

The Groovy compiler feels like a half-baked product, just as the language. It cannot decide if it wants to be a statically typed language or a dynamic one. It happens all too often that I have to manually cast stuff because the compiler cannot deduct the type of an expression. Seriously, it feels like writing Java pre-1.5 (before Generics). At the same time, your code might just compile, and you'd get a runtime error because you forgot to rename an attribute that you referenced, and due to some dynamic wizardry Groovy tries to retrieve it anyway. It is the very opposite of the Erlang universe, where the more time I spent the more impressed I got. So really no comparison between the two, forget Groovy if you have more than a toy project. Java on the other hand... will soon have it's fibers thanks to Project Loom...

zmmmmm 7y ago
> your code might just compile, and you'd get a runtime error because you forgot to rename an attribute The eclipse plugin has a pretty good approach in that it underlines things that cannot be deterministically type checked (that is: it can't prove they are wrong, but it can't prove they are right). It does a fair bit of type inference, so once you get used to that it's reasonably low amount of pain that comes from this type of problem.

zmmmmm 7y ago

> I use it for Jenkins pipelines and it does not even has an editor with code completion. I must run it through an interpreter to find simple syntax errors, like a missing parenthesis It's sad that so many people form their perception of Groovy from what they encounter inside Jenkins. I do full application development with it inside Eclipse and it is fantastic. None of the above applies. It's basically the same as developing in Java just 30% of the code size.