Slightly modified from original posthttp://adamldavis.com/

There’s a hot new programming language that I’m excited about. It can be used dynamically or statically-typed, your choice. It supports functional programming constructs, including first-class functions, currying, and more. It has multiple-inheritance, type inference, and meta-programming. It also integrates really well with a battle-tested enterprise-worthy language and best-of-class virtual machine.

This programming language actually isn’t that new. It’s from 2004, but they’ve recently added a lot of new features, such as traits. Oh, did I mention it has a great community and tons of frameworks built on top of it for web-applications, testing, and even full build systems. This language is great for building DSL’s and is very light-weight. Oh, and it can be compiled to JavaScript and it can be used to develop for Android.

As you might have guessed, this language is called “Groovy”. The virtual machine it’s built on is the JVM, the web framework is Grails, the testing framework is spock, and the build system is Gradle.

As you may have heard, Pivotal has dropped its Groovy/Grails support. Although some will take this news as sky-falling bad news, I actually think it’s the opposite. Pivotal only "acquired" the developers behind Groovy and Grails through a “Russian nesting doll” turn of events. In short, SpringSource bought G2One then Pivotal bought SpringSource (and VMWare goes in there somewhere).

There are tons of companies that stand to benefit from Groovy that could take up its funding: Google, Oracle, and Gradleware come to mind.

Groovy has a lot going for it. With projects like ratpackgrooscript, gradle, and others, its future looks bright.

Also: Grails has improved dramatically and will support microservices much better in the next release (3) among other improvements.

UpdateGroovy Moving to a Foundation

Views: 139

Comment

You need to be a member of Codetown to add comments!

Join Codetown

Comment by Jackie Gleason on April 24, 2015 at 9:27am
In my world people aren't letting the news worry them too much. No plans to switch back to spring but I do think this highlights one of the weaknesses of Groovy. It is a lot harder to convert a Groovy file into a Java file than the reverse.
Comment by Adam Davis on March 5, 2015 at 4:47pm

Update: Groovy stewardship is moving to the Apache Software Foundation.

Here's a great article by Cédric Champeau (one of the developers behind Groovy) on Groovy's history and who has contributed to it over the years: http://melix.github.io/blog/2015/02/who-is-groovy.html

Comment by Adam Davis on March 1, 2015 at 9:56am

Clarification: Groovy and Grails are open-source projects. I used the short-hand "acquired" to describe Pivotal's hiring of the developers behind Groovy and Grails. Groovy and Grails development would continue even if no one hires these developers, just at a slower pace. 

Happy 10th year, JCertif!

Notes

Welcome to Codetown!

Codetown is a social network. It's got blogs, forums, groups, personal pages and more! You might think of Codetown as a funky camper van with lots of compartments for your stuff and a great multimedia system, too! Best of all, Codetown has room for all of your friends.

When you create a profile for yourself you get a personal page automatically. That's where you can be creative and do your own thing. People who want to get to know you will click on your name or picture and…
Continue

Created by Michael Levin Dec 18, 2008 at 6:56pm. Last updated by Michael Levin May 4, 2018.

Looking for Jobs or Staff?

Check out the Codetown Jobs group.

 

Enjoy the site? Support Codetown with your donation.



InfoQ Reading List

Article: Architecting Portable Systems on Open Standards for Digital Sovereignty

Digital sovereignty is about maintaining control of critical systems by limiting reliance on any single vendor. Open standards and portable architectures reduce lock‑in and keep migration options open, even when providers change pricing, licensing, or viability. Full independence is impossible, but disciplined design and clear guardrails strengthen resilience.

By Jakob Beckmann

QCon London 2026: Running AI at the Edge - Running Real Workloads Directly in the Browser

At QCon London 2026, James Hall discussed running AI workloads directly in browsers, highlighting local processing benefits such as enhanced privacy, reduced latency and cost. He examined technologies like Transformers.js and WebGPU, illustrated practical applications, and provided guidelines for browser-based AI implementation, emphasizing appropriate use cases and evaluation principles.

By Daniel Curtis

Inside Netflix’s Graph Abstraction: Handling 650TB of Graph Data in Milliseconds Globally

Netflix engineers built Graph Abstraction, a high-throughput platform managing 650 TB of graph data with millisecond latency. Supporting services from Netflix Gaming’s social graphs to operational topology graphs, it maintains global availability via asynchronous replication. This article covers its architecture, caching, and traversal design for high-scale performance.

By Leela Kumili

Presentation: Data Mesh in Action: A Journey From Ideation to Implementation

Anurag Kale discusses the transition from centralized data bottlenecks to a decentralized Data Mesh architecture at Horse Powertrain. He explains the four pillars - domain ownership, data as a product, self-serve platforms, and federated governance - to empower autonomous teams. Learn how to apply DDD and platform engineering to scale analytical value and align data strategy with business goals.

By Anurag Kale

Java News Roundup: JDK 26, LibericaJDK, Payara Platform, GlassFish Milestone, ClawRunr

This week's Java roundup for March 16th, 2026, features news highlighting: the GA release of JDK 26; LibericaJDK 26; the March 2026 edition of the Payara Platform; the first milestone release of GlassFish 9.0; a point release of Micronaut; and introducing ClawRunr, a new Java-based personal AI assistant created by JobRunr.

By Michael Redlich

© 2026   Created by Michael Levin.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service