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This has always been a problem with Groovy; terrible communication from the core language developers. It's unfortunate because I think Groovy could be a lot mor

This has always been a problem with Groovy; terrible communication from the core language developers. It's unfortunate because I think Groovy could be a lot more popular than it is but I think most developers are unaware of its existence even on just the stock JVM.

coldtea 12y ago
Well, the fact that I can't recall ANY Groovy core developer answering a comment on HN ever, also speaks volumes. Or even some devoted Groovy contributor.
- msgilligan 12y ago
  They are mostly Europeans and it is late Saturday night, so I'd cut them some slack. I'll post on Twitter and see if they can respond when the wake up on Sunday.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    No, I mean I don't recall seeing them ever.
    - vorg 12y ago
      Two of the despots posted something under their own names 2 yrs ago. I think, though, that one of the Pivotal employees frequently posts under various different usernames.
      - blackdrag 12y ago
        Guess I am one of the ones from 2 yrs ago, even though I am not aware this has already been 2 yrs. I thought last time was already last year... well, I can be easily mistaken. But I really wonder what those Pivotal accounts are supposed to be. Could be a reason to talk with some people if I had details
        vorg 12y ago
        You can check chronological comments from a certain user at, say, https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blackdrag https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blackdrag or https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=glaforge https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=glaforge . I was just answering someone else's query when I mentioned that. Most users on Hacker News use pseudonyms to better avoid the problems possible with having an online presence anywhere, though not all of us can be bothered. I suspect one regular commenter here, though, is associated with the Groovy/Grails developers at Pivotal.
- mindcrime 12y ago
  To be fair, which languages do have their core developers posting here, and especially on a regular basis? Maybe I just don't pay enough attention, but I don't really recall that many. Walter Bright is the primary name that jumps to mind, and I'm actually having trouble coming up with many others.
  - ZeroGravitas 12y ago
    I've seen Rust contributors comment here, but similarly don't think it's a particularly long list.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Well, I've seen contributors and core team people from .NET (and Azure), Java, Go, Rust, Arc (well, duh), Haskell, Clojure, Julia, Coffeescript and lots of other languages... Some of them on a regular basis (Rust and Go people especially), others frequently pop up when their languages are discussed.
    - mindcrime 12y ago
      OK, now that you mention it, I do recall the Rust folks. Some of the others I don't remember, but I'm sure you're right. I probably just don't pay enough attention to that sort of thing. :-)
- blackdrag 12y ago
  Well, I as Groovy Core don't follow hacker news normally. There are already enough channels for me to follow and the density of Groovy related themes has been quite low here. It as a thing of trying to spend the little time I have with something useful and being effective about it. So if I answer here, then only because someone pointed me to it and then it is more to try to fight misinformation and FUD
- ecspike 12y ago
  Guillaume Laforge and Jochen Theodorou actually comment a bit. There are probably others whose github and HN user names I can't guess as easily.
pjmlp 12y ago
It was more popular a few years ago. Back in 2009, Grails was the big theme in many JUGs in Germany. We even added Groovy support to our JSF internal SDK as a means to buy into the "has Groovy support" checklist. Nowadays, if it wasn't for Graddle, I guess it would be just maintenance related projects. At least from what I see as JUG talks.
- mindcrime 12y ago
  FWIW, almost everything we are doing at Fogbeam is Groovy (and Grails) based. I will agree that Groovy isn't as "trendy" as it was a couple of years ago, but it still seems to be progressing, and it's worked amazingly well for us. Personally, I'm a huge fan of both Groovy and Grails.
zibit 12y ago
Could you give examples of recent terrible communications from the developers? I use Grails - based on Groovy - and I feel like I've been in the loop.
- vorg 12y ago
  After posting my comment, Cedric Champeau has since posted an announcement [1] to the users mailing list, giving the reason for the delay: "official Groovy support wasn't decided until GR8Conf, where I wanted to show a prototype". So it seems nowadays only Groovy developers who pay to attend their conferences are polled when making decisions. Those who "only" follow the mailing lists are ignored. [1] http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/You-can-now-write-Android-apps-using-Groovy-td5719940.html http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/You-can-now-write-Android...
  - blackdrag 12y ago
    I agree that the mailing list should have been used the same day, but are you seriously unhappy that something is announced on the mailing list with a delay of 4 days, where all of these days had been travel, conference or holiday for any of the core members?
blackdrag 12y ago
So what's the appropriate communication way for this? I am curious to know how that should have been done

coldtea 12y ago

Well, the fact that I can't recall ANY Groovy core developer answering a comment on HN ever, also speaks volumes. Or even some devoted Groovy contributor.

msgilligan 12y ago
They are mostly Europeans and it is late Saturday night, so I'd cut them some slack. I'll post on Twitter and see if they can respond when the wake up on Sunday.
- coldtea 12y ago
  No, I mean I don't recall seeing them ever.
  - vorg 12y ago
    Two of the despots posted something under their own names 2 yrs ago. I think, though, that one of the Pivotal employees frequently posts under various different usernames.
    - blackdrag 12y ago
      Guess I am one of the ones from 2 yrs ago, even though I am not aware this has already been 2 yrs. I thought last time was already last year... well, I can be easily mistaken. But I really wonder what those Pivotal accounts are supposed to be. Could be a reason to talk with some people if I had details
      - vorg 12y ago
        You can check chronological comments from a certain user at, say, https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blackdrag https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blackdrag or https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=glaforge https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=glaforge . I was just answering someone else's query when I mentioned that. Most users on Hacker News use pseudonyms to better avoid the problems possible with having an online presence anywhere, though not all of us can be bothered. I suspect one regular commenter here, though, is associated with the Groovy/Grails developers at Pivotal.
mindcrime 12y ago
To be fair, which languages do have their core developers posting here, and especially on a regular basis? Maybe I just don't pay enough attention, but I don't really recall that many. Walter Bright is the primary name that jumps to mind, and I'm actually having trouble coming up with many others.
- ZeroGravitas 12y ago
  I've seen Rust contributors comment here, but similarly don't think it's a particularly long list.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Well, I've seen contributors and core team people from .NET (and Azure), Java, Go, Rust, Arc (well, duh), Haskell, Clojure, Julia, Coffeescript and lots of other languages... Some of them on a regular basis (Rust and Go people especially), others frequently pop up when their languages are discussed.
  - mindcrime 12y ago
    OK, now that you mention it, I do recall the Rust folks. Some of the others I don't remember, but I'm sure you're right. I probably just don't pay enough attention to that sort of thing. :-)
blackdrag 12y ago
Well, I as Groovy Core don't follow hacker news normally. There are already enough channels for me to follow and the density of Groovy related themes has been quite low here. It as a thing of trying to spend the little time I have with something useful and being effective about it. So if I answer here, then only because someone pointed me to it and then it is more to try to fight misinformation and FUD
ecspike 12y ago
Guillaume Laforge and Jochen Theodorou actually comment a bit. There are probably others whose github and HN user names I can't guess as easily.

pjmlp 12y ago

It was more popular a few years ago. Back in 2009, Grails was the big theme in many JUGs in Germany. We even added Groovy support to our JSF internal SDK as a means to buy into the "has Groovy support" checklist. Nowadays, if it wasn't for Graddle, I guess it would be just maintenance related projects. At least from what I see as JUG talks.

mindcrime 12y ago
FWIW, almost everything we are doing at Fogbeam is Groovy (and Grails) based. I will agree that Groovy isn't as "trendy" as it was a couple of years ago, but it still seems to be progressing, and it's worked amazingly well for us. Personally, I'm a huge fan of both Groovy and Grails.

zibit 12y ago

Could you give examples of recent terrible communications from the developers? I use Grails - based on Groovy - and I feel like I've been in the loop.

vorg 12y ago
After posting my comment, Cedric Champeau has since posted an announcement [1] to the users mailing list, giving the reason for the delay: "official Groovy support wasn't decided until GR8Conf, where I wanted to show a prototype". So it seems nowadays only Groovy developers who pay to attend their conferences are polled when making decisions. Those who "only" follow the mailing lists are ignored. [1] http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/You-can-now-write-Android-apps-using-Groovy-td5719940.html http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/You-can-now-write-Android...
- blackdrag 12y ago
  I agree that the mailing list should have been used the same day, but are you seriously unhappy that something is announced on the mailing list with a delay of 4 days, where all of these days had been travel, conference or holiday for any of the core members?

blackdrag 12y ago

So what's the appropriate communication way for this? I am curious to know how that should have been done