What is Groovy?
Groovy is a dynamic language, which is in sharp contrast to the static-type system that you’re likely familiar with in Java. Groovy applications compile completely to JVM (Java Virtual Machine) bytecode, which means Groovy code will happily run inside the Java environment, it also brings advanced concepts to the JVM, such as functional programming, Metaprogramming, as well as excellent support for processing JSON and XML files.
Finally, although it is considered an alternative language, it enjoys rich supports across the Java ecosystem, including mature IDE support.
Understanding Groovy
- Object-oriented language.
- Has both static and dynamic capabilities.
- Offers advanced programming concepts.
- Considered an alternative Java language.
Examples of Alternative Java Languages
- Scala: Which is a statically-typed, object-oriented and functional language,
- Clojure: This is a dialect of the Lisp language that was created expressly to run on the JVM.
- Kotlin: This is a statically-typed language that runs on the JVM that can compile into either JavaScript or JVM bytecode.
Polyglot programming is a concept that’s arisen in recent years to really take advantage of this explosion in alternative languages for different frameworks. The concept is simple. We might consider more stable, predictable languages at the bottom of the box, or in our case, the framework. For the JVM world, this might include static languages such as Java or Scala. As we move up the box or into the actual application code, we might think of more dynamic and flexible languages. For our case that may be Groovy, Clojure, or even JRuby. At the top of the box, we might look to lightweight DSL (Domain Specific Language)s to build the key business logic into our application on the JVM include the Apache Camel DSL or Gradle, the build tool, but we could also build our own business-specific DSLs to really capture the rules of our business domain.
Installation Process of Groovy
Step 1. First installing the SDKMAN tool. Which is supported on Linux or OS X. However if you are working on Windows machine. You can still follow along by first installing the Cygwin UNIX emulator. Which can be found at www.Cygwin.com
Step 2. Open the terminal and type the below command and hit enter
Step 3. Once the execution script complete, we will source the SDKMAN init script to ensure that everything SDKMAN needs to operate has been initialized in our current session.
Step 4. Finally, we will validate that SDKMAN installed successfully by asking SDKMAN for its current version to type the command sdk version and hit enter.
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Step 4. Once you have installed SDKMAN successfully, you can then proceed to install Groovy. You can do this with the SDKMAN install command.
It actually depends on the JVM, which means that you will also need to ensure that you have Java installed and available in order for Groovy to work properly.
Why is Groovy Used?
It is very similar syntax like Java, Groovy is easily accessible for Java developers. As a matter of fact, most Java syntax is actually legal Groovy syntax, as it simply takes the existing Java concepts and builds upon them. This gives Groovy a very smooth learning curve to a developer who may already be familiar with the Java Language. One of the biggest concerns, when a team considers branching out into a new language, is that they will lose the investment in the massive proprietary code that they have built up over the years.
However, given Groovy’s tight integration with the JVM, you can easily use your existing Java libraries from Groovy.
Finally, Groovy objects actually extend the same java.lang.Object base object so it fits very well into the Java object-oriented module that your team may already know. Overall, Groovy will feel very familiar to a Java team, especially when compared to other alternative languages such as Scala or Clojure.
Why do We Need Groovy?
Groovy works very well in the application development layer, especially web development. Groovy-based frameworks such Grails are excellent alternatives to Java-based web frameworks such as Stripes or Spring MVC, as Groovy’s dynamic nature makes it very well suited to working with concepts on the web.
It is well suited to building DSLs on top of Java or Groovy frameworks. Though you can also build these DSLs in Java as we have seen with Apache Camel, Groovy’s expressive nature and flexible syntax allow you to create much more readable DSLs than were ever possible in the Java language.
Groovy’s flexible syntax allows you to create tests that are very readable and that could be easily shared with a business stakeholder to ensure your app is delivering the expected functionality.
The popular Groovy-based testing framework Spock is a great example of Groovy’s syntax to create these highly readable tests.
It is lightweight, script-like syntax and tight integration with Java APIs makes it an excellent choice for writing small scripts in a JVM environment.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Groovy
Let’s explore some of the well-known advantages and disadvantages of Groovy.
Advantages
- Dynamic typing (enables you to program faster, at least primarily).
- Currying/partial software (enabling you to a replica of the function with more than one arguments set).
- Tooling support to get useful APIs applying @DelegatesTo.
- Native associative array/key-value mapping support (you are able to generate an associative array literal).
- String interpolation (better building among strings showing values).
- Regex’s getting first-class residents.
Disadvantages
- The Groovy plugins (program conclusion, syntax coloring,) – around for Eclipse – remains incredibly buggy.
- No base code format for Groovy: This can be an actual drawback for Groovy currently. In case you are doing work in a group this might be a headache: reading the program based on a format, CVS evaluate can be hard, a few examples to say.
- You should learn new ideas prefer: closures – which will benefit once you understand them! Without closures, you are unable to apply inner classes in Groovy that are mainly essentially written unit testing.
How will this Technology Help you Grow your Career?
Groovy Framework is widely used in most multinational corporations like Netflix, Samsung through Smart Things, Mutual of Omaha, Target and much more.
Groovy has its own good special places when it comes to utilization, for example we come across plenty of projects as well as, products embedding Groovy to get conveying their organization protocols or simply business logic in an exceedingly understandable style, a lot that also subject matter specialists have the ability to author protocols themselves without much support from programmers.
Conclusion
It seems like good memories with leave only footprints, when you’ve been coding in Java, or additional OOP languages, for a long time.
It creates things much simpler and way less verbose. As well as more features prefer scripting and simply Domain Specific Language features, push Groovy to the new level and provides it with the new look which is lacking for older languages.
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