4 ms·

I ditched Grails for Play in 2011, definitely prefer Scala over Groovy any day of the week.

mindcrime 13y ago
I have really only experimented with Scala, so I'm not in a position to really judge it. But my initial impression is that Scala makes it awfully easy to write "write only code" that no one else can read. The amount of optional syntax, and the multitude of different ways to do the same thing, doesn't sit quite so well with me. OTOH, I have generally been a fan of languages with static type systems, and I believe Scala tends to be a bit more performant than Groovy. I'll probably revisit Scala at some point, but right now Groovy is working really well for me.
- virtualwhys 13y ago
  Don't get me wrong, Groovy was (and likely still is) a very pleasant alternative to boilerplate laden Java, but the lack of static typing and runtime MOP magic was, in hindsight, more hindrance than help. Agreed re: many ways to do one thing, Scala's no Python ;-) Readability is a matter of experience. From the outside looking in some Scala code may look fairly dense, but the same can be said of Haskell. Groovy wins in this department, no argument there, any Java dev can grok Groovy.
- vorg 13y ago
  > right now Groovy is working really well for me Happy you've found a language that works out for you! You're certainly a prolific promoter of Groovy here at Hacker News... 7 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360491 "Most of our code is in Groovy" 20 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7278426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7278426 "Assuming there is a next startup and it's anything like the current startup, then I'd probably go with Groovy again. Groovy has worked very well for us." 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042329 "We've been using Grails and Groovy extensively (almost exclusively) at Fogbeam Labs for about 3 years now, and I am very happy with how that decision has worked out" 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013785 "Anyway, if you already know Java and have some familiarity with that world, I can't recommend Groovy and Grails highly enough." 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7011934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7011934 "if you asked me to write a non-trivial program starting today, and I had to optimize for productivity, I'd pick Groovy."
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    Heh, that's interesting in a sense... especially given that I'm not involved with either Groovy or Grails projects in and of themselves (eg, not a committer / contributor to either), just a happy fan. I do find it curious though, that you took the time necessary to look all of that up and post it. I'm sure every language has a handful of people who are particularly vocal about their support for it. :-)
    - vorg 13y ago
      > you took the time necessary to look all of that up and post it Less than 5 minutes work. Having remembered many similar comments from you in the past, I used the search field at the bottom of the page, searching for "groovy", clicked the "comments" and "sort by date", then used the browser search function to jump to references to "mindcrime", cutting and pasting, then editing.

I have really only experimented with Scala, so I'm not in a position to really judge it. But my initial impression is that Scala makes it awfully easy to write "write only code" that no one else can read. The amount of optional syntax, and the multitude of different ways to do the same thing, doesn't sit quite so well with me. OTOH, I have generally been a fan of languages with static type systems, and I believe Scala tends to be a bit more performant than Groovy. I'll probably revisit Scala at some point, but right now Groovy is working really well for me.

virtualwhys 13y ago
Don't get me wrong, Groovy was (and likely still is) a very pleasant alternative to boilerplate laden Java, but the lack of static typing and runtime MOP magic was, in hindsight, more hindrance than help. Agreed re: many ways to do one thing, Scala's no Python ;-) Readability is a matter of experience. From the outside looking in some Scala code may look fairly dense, but the same can be said of Haskell. Groovy wins in this department, no argument there, any Java dev can grok Groovy.
vorg 13y ago
> right now Groovy is working really well for me Happy you've found a language that works out for you! You're certainly a prolific promoter of Groovy here at Hacker News... 7 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360491 "Most of our code is in Groovy" 20 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7278426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7278426 "Assuming there is a next startup and it's anything like the current startup, then I'd probably go with Groovy again. Groovy has worked very well for us." 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042329 "We've been using Grails and Groovy extensively (almost exclusively) at Fogbeam Labs for about 3 years now, and I am very happy with how that decision has worked out" 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013785 "Anyway, if you already know Java and have some familiarity with that world, I can't recommend Groovy and Grails highly enough." 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7011934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7011934 "if you asked me to write a non-trivial program starting today, and I had to optimize for productivity, I'd pick Groovy."
- mindcrime 13y ago
  Heh, that's interesting in a sense... especially given that I'm not involved with either Groovy or Grails projects in and of themselves (eg, not a committer / contributor to either), just a happy fan. I do find it curious though, that you took the time necessary to look all of that up and post it. I'm sure every language has a handful of people who are particularly vocal about their support for it. :-)
  - vorg 13y ago
    > you took the time necessary to look all of that up and post it Less than 5 minutes work. Having remembered many similar comments from you in the past, I used the search field at the bottom of the page, searching for "groovy", clicked the "comments" and "sort by date", then used the browser search function to jump to references to "mindcrime", cutting and pasting, then editing.