Groovy JSR 1, formally groovy-1.0-jsr-01, has been released for download. This is not a formal 1.0 release, despite the name, but is the first version that has the new parser (from the Groovy JSR) used by default. Groovy should go final sometime this summer, following a few more releases.

This release incorporates many changes, including these highlights (from the Groovy homepage):

• Introduction of a def keyword
• Parameter separator in the closure syntax
• Safe navigation
• Property keyword
• Array creation
• float and double notation
• Explicit method pointer syntax
• No 'do/while()' syntax
• 'No Dumb Expression' rule
• Strings and GStrings
• Assertions
• Integer division
• JDK5 for loop not supported
• Exclusive range

There are also many other bugfixes and improvements.

Links:

Groovy's home page
• JSR-241, the Groovy JSR

Congratulations guys. The introduction of a formal grammar is a big step forward. I'm looking forward to the final release.

I love GStrings ;-) !

I really hope Groovy matures fast so then we can leave Ruby guys speaking alone...

There is no "One language to rule them all, One language to find them,
One language to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them."

Get over it. Ruby is a great language, Java is too. The circles of what they are both great at overlap, when you find yourself in the overlapping bits pick one, when you find yourself outside the overlapping bit, the answer is easy.

-Brian

The statement is in regards to the ~"shut the ruby folks up."

Does he realize that groovy is being driven by a bunch of scripting language folks (and schemers)?

Does he realize that groovy is being driven by a bunch of scripting language folks (and schemers)?

From the first phrase on Groovy home page:

Groovy is an agile dynamic language for the Java 2 Platform that has many of the features that people like so much in languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk, making them available to Java developers using a Java-like

So yeah, I knew about it. Sorry about my irony. Dont get me wrong, it was just because in few past weeks Ruby/ROR is everywhere (even more here at TSS) and seems clear that there are lot of projects where it can work very well. More than a decade ago I spent lot of my time doing _almost_ object oriented code with xbase and 4GL "languages", some of them dynamic so I never had any doubt about Ruby or any other similar language can be effective for the right projects. "Magic is not inherently a bad word", right ?

But my point is JVM is in a very solid and mature state after 10 years of Java so unless Ruby folks can really fly providing (and having some good real sucessful projects too, not only PetStore kind of projects) "enterprise" level things like security and scalability (which I does not doubt either since they can be much more agile than Sun/IBM/BEA), I think Java will stay for many years ahead of Ruby in terms of maturity and confiability, not to mention the huge number of existing APIs Java does have.

I would like to be paid to program with Ruby too ;), but the fact is I do survive in a very diferent world: some of my clients dont want even "use something new like Struts" for some projects so you cam imagine why I wish for Groovy sucess.

So I would love to have a Groovy release candidate before jumping into Ruby. Who knows someone could write, for example, a killer ROR´s Relational Record implementation in Groovy, perhaps supporting even more mapping strategies beside the Single Table Inheritance ? THIS would be cool for me.

Java still have some very annoying problems, but it is where my clients want to put their money. Anyway, I will give me a chance to learn Ruby, Needle and perhaps RoR as soon I finish my current project.

Regards

...Relational Record implementation in Groovy

I meant "for Groovy" instead.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a truly stable Groovy release. I think you'll see Java 9 before that happens.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a truly stable Groovy release. I think you'll see Java 9 before that happens.

I wonder if Groovy will be truly stable before your scripting language, MetroJ, becomes truly stable?

BTW you're one man FUD campaign on Groovy is getting kinda boring. Why do you spend so much time bad mouthing Groovy when you could be finishing off your scripting language?

James

I think the important thing that shouldn't be overlooked is that Groovy is still an active project after a year and a half. And yes, it can be a little chaotic and unpredictable but they're still working on it and trying to improve things.

I too think it might be tad optimistic to expect to see Groovy 1.0-Final this summer, I genuinely hope I'm wrong.

But I think their critics should give them a chance; there are several committed people in the Groovy project that are keeping the momentum going.

I hope James can see the funny side of 1.0 Beta 11 ... it is certainly going to set some sort of record for longest time in beta. But better they have time to get things right.

Groovy is still destined to be the best scripting language for the JVM (IMHO :-) )

I wonder if Groovy will be truly stable before your scripting language, MetroJ, becomes truly stable?

BTW you're one man FUD campaign on Groovy is getting kinda boring. Why do you spend so much time bad mouthing Groovy when you could be finishing off your scripting language?

You're right. I said "I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a truly stable Groovy release. I think you'll see Java 9 before that happens". The time it took to write those two sentences will hold up the rest of my work for several months at least. :-)

A bit more seriously - I've said many times there's a ton of great stuff in Groovy. And I, along with many other people, remain disappointed (and a bit astounded) that it wasn't completed many months ago. You'd be surprised how many people would love to use Groovy in production, but they can't because the implementation is too buggy, and every few months a release comes along that breaks too much code.

At my day job I was trying to convince people at work to give Groovy a chance. And I was literally laughed at. Compared to Python, or Beanshell, or Ruby, or any number of choices Groovy is volatile, buggy, and almost completely undocumented. And I finally realized that the team showed no true interest in ever getting to a true stable 1.0 state, but were far more interested in hacking stuff in.

Time has borne my judgement out, I think. You just got finished with the jsr-1 release, which effectively broke _all_ groovy code. And according to the lists and wiki you're not through - the next release will break code again!

On top of that, you're still adding major new features. Yeah, it's April 2005 and the feature set isn't even fixed yet. And of course the usual laws of development apply - each time a new feature is put in some code invariably breaks.

None of this adds up to a formula for a stable release, certainly not in any near term horizon. Just the other day you were metaphorically rubbing your hands together with glee in anticipation of redoing all the builder stuff. More existing code to break. And the closure control stuff is still waiting in the wings. And whatever else happens to come up in the next few months or so.

This isn't FUD James. This is a user who's been really, really disappointed that you can't just fix a 1.0 feature set, fix the bugs, and ship the durn thing.

Rather than worrying about me, worry about your shrinkin user base. Think of all the Groovy books that have already been cancelled. Think of the few poor authors hanging on by a thread who have to keep rewriting their books as you change the language. Think of brave souls who have stuck with you - and get their code broken on practically every release. Think of people trying to recommend Groovy and writing up presentations - and finding a few weeks later that their presentations are inaccurate and out of date 'cuz you've switched things again. Think of those rare newbies still willing to try Groovy out - and finding that none of the documentation matches the current release at all.

Rather than worrying about FUD campaigns maybe you should think about your community and stop screwing them.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a truly stable Groovy release. I think you'll see Java 9 before that happens.

I wonder if Groovy will be truly stable before your scripting language, MetroJ, becomes truly stable?

BTW you're one man FUD campaign on Groovy is getting kinda boring. Why do you spend so much time bad mouthing Groovy when you could be finishing off your scripting language?

James, Mike didn't set out to compete with Groovy, he set out to use it, but it wasn't ready for him, which I am certain you can understand. As a conceptual fork of Groovy, whatever he builds will ultimately be a compliment to your original vision.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Cluster your POJOs!

There is no "One language to rule them all, One language to find them, One language to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them."Get over it. Ruby is a great language, Java is too. The circles of what they are both great at overlap, when you find yourself in the overlapping bits pick one, when you find yourself outside the overlapping bit, the answer is easy.-Brian

However, with Groovy you have a scripting language that is designed from the start to work with Java. There is need to make the decision to use Java or scripting, you can use both in the same project. This is a huge advantage over plain Ruby.

The Groovy JSR has been in development for just a little over 12 months. The fact that it has not, as of yet, released a final version is not a surprise.

If you were to examine the release histories of other languages such as Ruby, Perl, Python, etc. in their first years, you would find longer time frames for reaching a stable release.

Personally, I would hold suspect any language that was fully developed faster than 24 months. How can a team possibly create a new programming language that will serve hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of users, in under two years. I'm sorry, but if you think it takes so little time to create something truly useful, than your just being naive.

It will be interesting to see how MetroJ fairs when, or if ever, it is released into the lime light. I was on board early when you announced this new language to a small group of people, but I have not heard much from you in the past few months. Perhaps now that you have to do the work yourself, rather than whine about someone else’s work, you have discovered just how complex it is to create a programming language.

Back when you frequented the Groovy mailing list you complained a lot about the syntax. You just did not seem to understand that Groovy is a dynamic programming language which is inspired by Ruby, Python and other dynamic programming languages. Dynamic languages are a different paradigm. That's why they don't look like C# and Java. Duh!

Your frustration with the Groovy project, in my opinion, is that your suggestions were never adopted. Rather than debate the technical merits of any particular problem, you make allusions to some mythical majority that you have spoke to that think like you do. Personally, I think you’re making up stories every time you say something like "I spoke to a lot of developers who think bla bla bla just like me!" Other than Hani and you, I don't see people complaining about the progress Groovy has made or the way its designed. In fact, just the opposite is true. There are a lot more positive opinions than negative - by a large margin. You and Hani are just two people. Admittedly you are really loud and obnoxious people, but still you're only two.

Hani I can forgive. He hates everything. For you, its different. You are now designing a competitive language that hasn't even been released to the public. How can you continue to criticize a colleague who is actually gaining mind-share and growing a community? It's in bad taste. I suggest, that until you release something (anything!) that you shut the hell up. I for one have heard enough of your unsubstantiated criticisms. You can dish out criticisms of an open source project, but as the lead of your own could you take it? I guess if you could, you would have made your intentions to create ‘MetroJ” public a long time ago.

For those of you who read this and agree with Mike, let me ask you something. Have you actually designed a language before? Have you ever run an open source project? Have used a dynamic language (Ruby, Python, Perl, Smalltalk) in production systems? If your answer to these questions is no, than that puts you in the same camp as Mike S. He’s never designed a language before either, nor has he run an open source project (story but a private project is not open source), nor has he worked with a dynamic language enough to appreciate their qualities. How do you sit in judgment of Groovy if you don’t know anything about the technology or the process? Don’t believe what Mike is telling you. He only wants to be noticed. He really doesn’t have much to say that would mean anything to anyone who has experience in this area.

R.M.H. :

than your just being naive.

And let's not forget, the one and only, the truly amazing ladies and gentlemen - the definately !

I mean, really. You guys are native English speakers AND writers. It is unpardonable to spew out such utterly redneck productions. IT professionals are supposed to be smart educated people. Do they get a special dispense off the English classes while in school where you guys live ?

For those of you who read this and agree with Mike, let me ask you something. Have you actually designed a language before? Have you ever run an open source project? Have used a dynamic language (Ruby, Python, Perl, Smalltalk) in production systems?

I have - on all three accounts - and I agree with Mike.

Very interesting reasoning, Richard. Because I found Groovy lacking I've been working on an alternative in my own free time. And because I took the effort to work on something like that, I'm now somehow doing doing something bad and in bad taste.

I want to make sure I really understand this. If I wasn't working on a Groovy alternative, then it would be OK. But because I am working on such an alternative, I should "shut the hell up"?

Interesting - because I'm working on a dynamic language of my own I'm no longer allowed to criticize. I guess everyone who has left the Groovy project is similarly banned from criticizing Groovy? As someone who has been screwed by the Groovy project I have no right to attempt to warn off other people?

As for my qualifications - let's just say that I'm not quite as unqualified as you believe. You might want to consult my online resume for specifics.

I could go on for quite a long time dissecting this post of yours, but I'll settle for looking at just one piece which is indicative of all the rest:

"How do you sit in judgment of Groovy if you don’t know anything about the technology or the process?"

Richard, let me tell you something: by now I've read every line of code in Groovy. Every damn one. I participated for some time on the 3 Groovy lists. I wrote the documentation for Groovy closures which was acknowledged as far better than existed before (and it's still there on the web site). I'm a guy who ate, drank, and bathed in Groovy for several months. I gave the project up after having not just sampled it, but after fully experiencing it to the hilt.

Which is more than I can say for you, Richard. How much Groovy code have you written? Where are your Groovy scripts? How involved have you been with the JSR since it was launched? Where are your JSR proposals? I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

How much of the implementation code have you looked at? Have you ever looked at it?

Let me paraphrase your closing bit here: Don't believe what Richard is telling you. I worked with you Richard on the closure docs - he did the fun-to-read intro, I did the more technical specification stuff. And he told me point blank he didn't really know the deep parts of the closure spec. This came out on the groovy lists as well - it's clear you don't actually know Groovy. Which is really weird.

You don't know crap about Groovy and yet you're defending it like it's some holy thing. It's yet another Groovy joke on the world: you're one of the founding JSR members for Groovy and yet you know almost nothing about the language.

You see Richard - I am loud and obnoxious. This is true. But you seem to automatically assume that because someone is loud that they're incorrect. This is not the case. Rather than judge me based on my tone, maybe you should read the content of my writings. Instead of being made at me, maybe you should check just how much JSR-1 broke in the language. And maybe, rather than asking for my qualifications in language design you should as the Groovy guys for their qualifications.

because I'm working on a dynamic language of my own I'm no longer allowed to criticize.

What language? MetroJ? Where is this mysterious language that makes you so qualified to comment on language design? I haven't seen it.

The truth is, your criticisms are just silly. Here is one example, of many very strange comments you’ve repeatedly made: "They broke backward compatibility!"

Dude. It's a beta. There is no "backward compatibility" with pre-release or beta software. That's why its NOT called "final". Gosh. I thought that was something a software engineer would understand.

Repeat after me: "beta doesn't not mean final".
“Beta software can, and probably will change, before it’s final”

As someone who has been screwed by the Groovy project I have no right to attempt to warn off other people?

How did you get screwed over? This is another weird thing you’ve said a hundred times.

Let's see, you bet your reputation at work on a language that was still in development. It changed and now your old stuff, those scripts based on old "beta" versions of a language, don't work. Gosh. It's no wonder your friends laughed at you when you spoke about using Groovy in production. I got news for you Mike: They weren't laughing at Groovy.

As for my qualifications - let's just say that I'm not quite as unqualified as you believe. You might want to consult my online resume for specifics.

Uh .. Ok. Just a sec. Nope. Not impressed, but thanks for providing hard evidence that you are not qualified to criticize language design or the process,

I don't see anything about inventing a successful programming language. I don't see anything about leading a successful open source project. Hmm. Nothing about running a JSR. No mention of using a dynamic programming language in production other than Perl. Perl is cool, but having used it doesn't make you a language expert. Sorry.

Richard, let me tell you something: by now I've read every line of code in Groovy. Every damn one. I participated for some time on the 3 Groovy lists. I wrote the documentation for Groovy closures which was acknowledged as far better than existed before (and it's still there on the web site). I'm a guy who ate, drank, and bathed in Groovy for several months. I gave the project up after having not just sampled it, but after fully experiencing it to the hilt.

And you still don't get it? Wow. That's pretty sad.

But what’s worse is that you never contributed a patch. Never helped develop a piece of functionality needed by the project. The only thing you ever did was write an overview of closures. For someone who is intimately familiar with the inner workings of Groovy, I think that’s dreadful. You could have done some good. What a waste.

Which is more than I can say for you, Richard. How much Groovy code have you written? Where are your Groovy scripts? How involved have you been with the JSR since it was launched? Where are your JSR proposals?

Dude. JSR-241 The Groovy Language specification was written, in large part by me. Where are your JSR proposals? They must have been really good because there are so many active JSR's with your name on them. Let's count ... hmm. I'm sure they are here somewhere. Nope. Not a one.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Uhh ... No thanks.

How much of the implementation code have you looked at? Have you ever looked at it? Let me paraphrase your closing bit here: Don't believe what Richard is telling you. I worked with you Richard on the closure docs - he did the fun-to-read intro, I did the more technical specification stuff. And he told me point blank he didn't really know the deep parts of the closure spec.

You have an interesting approach to debates, Mike. When you can't come up with a good argument, you start making things up. Please show me where I said that I "really [don't] know the deep parts" or "I don't get Groovy". It's going to be hard, since I never said that, but hey, you made it up so ...

I am loud and obnoxious. This is true. But you seem to automatically assume that because someone is loud that they're incorrect. This is not the case. Rather than judge me based on my tone, maybe you should read the content of my writings.

I have read your blog. For a while there you made some good points about progress. Things had slowed down for a while. Even I said so, but other points you have made are just weird. There are a lot of people who read your ravings and just shake their heads. It's pretty obvious that you don't understand the difference between dynamic programming languages and general programming languages like Java. You just don't get it.

because I'm working on a dynamic language of my own I'm no longer allowed to criticize.

This really cracks me up, because you’ve said a dozen times that MetroJ is a “scripting language”. Nothing more and nothing less. Now you call it a dynamic language. Sorry, Mike but they are not the same thing. A dynamic language can be used for scripting, but a scripting language is not automatically a dynamic language. If you really knew what you were talking about, which you obviously do not, you would know this.

Instead of being [mad] at me, maybe you should check just how much JSR-1 broke in the language.

Sigh. It's not a final release so you can't break anything.

You claimed many times that you are simply criticizing Groovy and that you have every right to do that. Well this is the Internet so of course you can say anything you like, but the fact is what you have been pontificating is not criticism. It’s a FUD campaign.

If you’re language is so great and superior to Groovy, than put it out there. Let’s see this magical language you’ve developed. It must manifest your best ideas. You’re implementing it right? So, if MetroJ can stand up to the test of the open community it will speak for its self. If, however, the only way you can get any attention is to make unsubstantiated claims about the Groovy language and the open source community that support it, then I guess we know the truth.

I wish I had not told you to “shut the hell up”. That was rude and I apologize. You have every right to speak your mind, but please be honest about it. The truth is, you want to convince people that Groovy sucks so that you can promote your self and your own scripting language. All this “I loved Groovy and it betrayed me” crap, is just that. Crap.

I mean really. How seriously can you take a guy who says in one breath, “Language A sucks!" and in another says, “I’m developing Language B!”

If you’re language is so great and superior to Groovy, than put it out there.

To paraphrase you:
I mean really. How seriously can you take a guy who makes such horrible mistakes ?
If you can't tell the difference between "your" and "you're", "then" and "than" and have no idea when to use one or the other, you're definitely not qualified to write a programming language spec.
Make sure you're able to understand the English language spec first.

How seriously can you take a guy who says in one breath, "Language A sucks!" and in another says, "I'm developing Language B!"

One word only is needed to bind those two statements together: 'Therefore'

"Language A sucks, therefore I'm developing language B."

Without going into the historical background of language A, which I'm not personally familliar with, this sounds quite reasonable.

As to why he does not put language B out in the open, presumably that's because it isn't finished enough yet to be stable, and he doesn't want to break the work other people do with it before it becomes stable.

Repeat after me: "beta doesn't not mean final".
“Beta software can, and probably will change, before it’s final”

This may be a perception issue. However, when someone sees something tagged as "1.0 beta-10" they may have a reasonable expectation that a true 1.0 is imminent (given that it's beta-10).

At the same time the Groovy developers have been hyping the language something fierce for some time and urging people to try it out. My own viewpoint is that you'd have to be slightly crazy to do anything signicant in Groovy because they keep breaking code repeatedly on releases.

But what's particularly worrying is how much breaks on each release. Unlike you, Richard, I speak from direct experience here. Trying each new Groovy release was an adventure, you never knew what was going to happen to any code you might have lying around. But the worrying part is that its gotten worse with each release - the changes and breakage is increasing over time, which is not at all what most people would expect. Most people would, I think, expect that the language issues would be settled and that the rate of change would slow as they converged towards 1.0. Instead jsr-01 broke more code than any other release.

How did you get screwed over? This is another weird thing you’ve said a hundred times.

If you actually read the groovy mailing lists, you'd know that many months ago I posted there that I was formally evaluating Groovy for use at my day job. This involved trying it out, writing scripts, etc.

This categorized me as a Groovy user. And the Groovy team felt free to change things at will for various releases, and without warning. When people break my code without warning, I tend to feel screwed.

Case in point - jsr-01 completely changed the closure syntax. If you happened to follow the JSR list _very_ closely you'd know that this was coming. But if you only followed the user list you were caught completely by surprise when jsr-01 came out.

This is typical of the project. As a result of this sort of behavior, I recommend that people not use Groovy - 'cuz even if they're happy with it today it won't matter because the next release will change things anyway.

On qualifications - I won't debate the issue with you. We'll just have to see what I come up with. I would like to know what special qualifications the Groovy team members have that you seem to believe are so important (and which I apparently lack). It seems to me that the people with the most language experience left the project, and left it largely for the reasons I've cited.

Dude. JSR-241 The Groovy Language specification was written, in large part by me. Where are your JSR proposals? They must have been really good because there are so many active JSR's with your name on them. Let's count ... hmm. I'm sure they are here somewhere. Nope. Not a one.

Let's set the record straight. You wrote the JSR proposal and set yourself up as the JSR head along with James. And then you quit the JSR in the summer, and haven't contributed anything to it since.

Me? No, I didn't join the JSR and I haven't written any formal JSR proposals accepted by the JCP. What I was talking about was proposals within the Groovy JSR process. I made a number of technical proposals - which are available on the groovy dev and jsr mailing lists archived on gmane.

I mean really. How seriously can you take a guy who says in one breath, “Language A sucks!" and in another says, “I’m developing Language B!”

I find it hard to believe that you're serious with that statement. Most languages exist today because someone said "There's nothing out there that does what I want - so I'm gonna create my own". Often this is directly attributed to someone being happy with one specific language (or family of languages). Java exists because some people were unhappy with C++. C++ exists because Stroustrup found C limiting. Perl exists becuase there was nothing like it around - and Wall had things to do that needed it. Same with Ruby and Python - they were created because a hole was seen in the language landscape and someone had an opportunity to fill it.

So let me put it to you - by your logic James Strachan can never, ever criticize any aspect of Java. Why? Because Java is langauge "A" and he wrote a competing language "B". If James does criticize Java we should ignore him because he wrote a competing language.

We should like wise assume that Stroustrup knows nothing of C and we should ignore all his ramblings about it - because after all he created a competing language, C++. People who create something that is in competition of something existing obviously are biased and evil and are not to be trusted :-)

As to why I haven't released my stuff to the harsh glare of publicity, that's simple. So simple that it would probably shock you and Groovy people out of their shoes: I haven't released or announced it because it's not ready. I will not announce it until it's reasonably stable, the major language features fixed, the syntax solid. When I do release it, I won't release it for publicity, or so I can go around to conferences with a cool sounding presentation - indeed, I don't do conferences. When it's released, I'll release it because it solves a category of problems I face at work, and believe that other people may have similar problems.

 Most people would, I think, expect that the language issues would be settled and that the rate of change would slow as they converged towards 1.0. Instead jsr-01 broke more code than any other release.

Ever lost some of your time, reading the roadmap:

http://groovy.codehaus.org/Roadmap

and the notes about "Migration From Classic to JSR syntax":

http://groovy.codehaus.org/Migration+From+Classic+to+JSR+syntax


Like Richard said, we are talking about beta software!! You have a roadmap and everybody knew that Groovy syntax was going to change because of the JSR.


To finish...I hope my english is correct because its not my main language.... I see from this thread that now we have English teachers reviewing our posts to evaluate our tecnhical capabilities...


Pedro Costa

To finish...I hope my english is correct because its not my main language.... I see from this thread that now we have English teachers reviewing our posts to evaluate our tecnhical capabilities...

Wow, I am so touche I'm choking with your irony...
Dear Pedro, I'm not an English teacher. Not a native speaker for that matter. My native language is a Latin language, most likely as yours is.
Thing is, I cannot take seriously the opinions of someone who cannot properly use his native language. Think about it for a second: are your friends illiterate ? Do they make gross spelling mistakes ? Do you when you write [Spanish] ? It's the same thing.
And if you do write English, in a blog or an email or whatever that's not instantaneous communication, why not have the decency to try to spell properly and use a spell checker ?

I'm not evaluating your technical capabilities based on your English knowledge. I'm just saying that if you want to be taken seriously, you have to put some effort into learning how to express yourself. It's very much like making sure your clothes are clean and you don't stink when you go out in public.
And that was a mean pun, in case you've missed it.

Shhhhh ..... The grownups are talking.

Wow Richard that is ... so funny. Must be a grown up joke ! And behold ! you've managed to spell it right !

Dude, you're sinking lower and lower. Mike may be a bit off with the stuff he's saying, but you're definitely a Nazi. Aren't you a bit ashamed telling people to shut the hell up? Who the **** gives you the right to call him a RAT? You seriously need to take some anger management counselling.

Cheesus, to think that I actually respected you up until an hour ago! I mean even Rolf is a much more decent character.

Well, Mike. I got news for you. The audience you are talking to now is a lot smarter than that.

I would like to ammend this statement to read:

"Well, Mike. I got news for you. The audience you are talking to now, with the exception of Radu-Adrian Popescu, is a lot smarter than that. "

At least I'm in a good company. The thought of being in your flock - granted, I'd be a groovy sheep, but a sheep nevertheless - gives me the creeps.

At least I'm in a good company. The thought of being in your flock - granted, I'd be a groovy sheep, but a sheep nevertheless - gives me the creeps.

While I don't like the bulk of this thread, the above is one of the wittiest comments I've seen in a long time .. I'm not sure if the multiple layers of word play were all purposeful, but kudos nonetheless!

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Cluster your POJOs!

They are, thank you :)

The fact that Mike Spille keeps complaining that a beta version of a language changed and hurt his opportunity to use it in production, is just hilarious. Doesn't anyone else see the humor in that? It's absurdly funny. GROOVY IS IN BETA! Of course its going to change.

I have no problem with you creating a new language. Go for it. The problem I have is that you are trying to frighten people away from Groovy, by creating uncertainty about the process, and imbuing people with doubt about its creator, James Strachan. That's FUD.

Please don't put yourself in the same league as Wall and Stroustrup. You are not in their league. If you search the Internet, you won't find these men, or other designers of popular languages, taking pot shots at each other or other open source languages. It doesn't happen, because while they may not agree with the design or process under which other languages are built, they have the class to focus on making their language the best they can, rather than criticizing the work of others.

That's what really separates you from people like James Strachan, Wall, and Stroustrup. They have class.

I suggest that you stop with this silly FUD campaign and focus on getting your own language ready for release.

The only reason I can see for your FUD campaign is that you are afraid that your language won't stand on its own technical merit. If you were really confident that MetroJ was going to be so great, you wouldn't worry about what the Groovy folks are doing. You would have the confidence to work on your own project and let the world decide.

You're like the worst kind of politician; You know that you can't win without a smear campaign. Well, Mike. I got news for you. The audience you are talking to now is a lot smarter than that. They can smell a rat a mile away.

Wee-haw, your speadign teh shit lik ehell on teh pour boy!

Richard, I'm not sure who pissed in your wheaties this morning, but get a grip.

I suggest you stop with this silly series of rants on TSS and get on with your own work.

I will concede that Groovy is in beta. Since this seems to be your answer to all criticisms, then I suppose this means you agree that Groovy in its current form is unstable, and users should expect things to break. Fine - then your message is the same as mine and readers get the same fundamental message: don't use Groovy in production, expect changes.

I am not classing myself in the "same league" with anyone. I was using examples and directly comparable analogies. Apparently I'm not allowed to do that anymore, either. Seems in the Monson-Haefel world I'm not allowed to do much of anything in fact. So....

Let me ask you this then, Richard: what's your real beef here? This started out with me saying that Groovy wasn't stable and looked like it wouldnt' be for a long time. You came out blazing with a gigantic rant - which effectively said that Groovy is beta so no rules apply!! You conmplain about FUD and pot shots - and meanwhile the content of all your posts in this thread sum up to nothing but FUD and pot shots about me and my work.

Please, let us know: what's the reason for _your_ FUD campaign? At this point you don't even attempt to respond to anything in the posts, you just keep responding with personal insults against me. Is this how you base your reports in your analyst company? Hey, I like this guy so he gets a good report! I hate this guy so I'll start a smear campaign! Maybe _you_ need to focus less on people and more on the technology.

My motivation was to give you a taste of your medicine. You will find that I very rarely, if ever, engage in this sort of rant. I find it distastefully simple. For example, this one was like shooting fish in the barrel. Hardly a challenge at all.

Unfortunately, you do this type of thing constantly and you have chosen James Strachan and Groovy open source project as your current victim. I wouldn't mind at all if your approach over the past few months had been more balanced, but it hasn't. It just been you ranting and raving. Well? How does it feel to be the target of a rant? Pretty crappy, I'll bet.

James is too much of a gentleman to engage in this type of rough play, but I'm not. I don't like it, but sometimes you have feed a man his own medicine. Obviously, you don't like it one bit. Good. Maybe you can learn from this experience.

Crap.

Let's see, Mike said groovy is unstable and that he finds it unlikely it will become a finished, polished language in the foreseable future. You've called him a RAT, accused him of paranoid delusions (comparing himself with Stroustrup and Larry Wall), of guerilla politics, pissed on his works and CV.
Right.

James is indeed a gentleman; after all, he's a Brit. You should probably spend more time in his company, maybe that class you're talking about will rub on you.

My motivation was to give you a taste of your medicine.

In that case you need to spend alot of time polishing your technique. For starters, before you criticize something harshly you have to research it in full first (at least if you want to use my medicine). So if you want to qualify, go off and read all my Groovy posts and blog entries in full.

For example, this one was like shooting fish in the barrel. Hardly a challenge at all.

Just spouting random hate has always been easy. Disliking something for a well-researched reason is much, much more difficult and involves a great deal more effort.

I wouldn't mind at all if your approach over the past few months had been more balanced, but it hasn't. It just been you ranting and raving. Well? How does it feel to be the target of a rant? Pretty crappy, I'll bet.

You see - lack of research. You see two sentences on TSS and garner a vague, random impression from disjointed things in the past and assume everything is ranting and raving. Research what I've actually written on the subject _first_, then make the conclusion.

As for how it makes me feel - a rant would only make me feel bad if it were accurate. If a child called me a poopie head I wouldn't feel bad for myself - I'd just shake my head at the kid and move on. I've yet to see you make any points that made sense or were backed up with solid information - you're just out there screaming "poopie head, poopie head!". When you grow up and learn how to research a topic in depth, perhaps then we can engage in meanginful debate.

James is too much of a gentleman to engage in this type of rough play, but I'm not. I don't like it, but sometimes you have feed a man his own medicine. Obviously, you don't like it one bit. Good. Maybe you can learn from this experience.

James prefers the high-falutin' approach of pointedly ignoring people and situations. It's just as rude as my approach but people like you think his is more "classy".

As for what I've learned - well, you've enlightened me as to your critical thinking skills, but that's about it.

Research! What a novel idea, Mike. Is that why you call MetroJ a scripting language in your mission statement and then call it a dynamic language on this thread? Must have taken a lot of research to come up with that misunderstanding.

Perhaps it was research that leads you to recommend a beta version of a language for production systems. Didn’t your co-works laugh you out of the office for that one? I guess they didn’t recognize good research when they saw it.
 
Let's see. I'm sure there is a lot more that you have "researched". Gosh this is just too easy. Lets look at some of the hard biting facts and research you provided in your February 28th, 2005 blog entry (http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/%202005/01/index.html )

Most of the developers don't seem to care very much about the JSR, and mostly just ignore it. And of course many people have abandoned the expert group.

Can you back this up with some numbers Mr. Researcher? What amount is “most� developers? Who is the mysterious group of "many" people who have abandoned the expert group? If you are going to claim that you do “research� and therefore back up what you say with facts, I suggest you provide some hard evidence to back these statements up. You know, something we can all go take a look at.

For me, what little involvement I had with Groovy is now done.

Hmm... I thought you lived, eat and breathed Groovy? Now you say you had little involvement? Perhaps you should read your own blog as research for future posts.

For the handful of people left over at the Groovy user and dev mailing lists

Can you put a number on that one? How many is a handful?

Seems like you throw around generalizations like "little", "many" and "most" quite a bit. This is hardly rock solid research.

What you call research I call innuendo. You come up with an opinion and then back it up with nothing but your own opinions. It’s pretty funny that you call this research.

Perhaps it was research that leads you to recommend a beta version of a language for production systems. Didn’t your co-works laugh you out of the office for that one? I guess they didn’t recognize good research when they saw it.

Sorry can't help it, but to also quote from the same Wikipedia-article:

In February 2005, Slashdot ran a story about recent phenomenona that a beta version often stays for years and is used as if it were in production-level.

...and obviously could because it was quite stable.

You really, really should know what you're doing before you make statements like this.

Perhaps it was research that leads you to recommend a beta version of a language for production systems. Didn’t your co-works laugh you out of the office for that one? I guess they didn’t recognize good research when they saw it.

As I said in the original e-mail, Groovy was under consideration for use in a scripting capacity. My ultimate recommendation was against Groovy.

However, my coworkers did laugh at me, just for the suggestion of looking into it. Does this make you happy - that my coworkers laughed at the suggestion of seriously using Groovy?

And this makes Groovy look good how?

Can you back this up with some numbers Mr. Researcher? What amount is “most� developers?

As I said, you should really look before writing. The following Groovy developers said they have no real interest in the JSR:

 - Dierk Koenig
 - Guillaume LaForge
 - Jochen Theodorou (aka blackdrag)

Search the Groovy dev and JSR mailing lists for more information. In fact, if you actually read those lists in detail you would know this already.

These guys do much of the day-to-day development (well, Guillaume has cut way back on his Groovy).

Chris Poirier and John Wilson (IBM) have left the expert group. As have you! Most of the other listed members have never participated.

At this point in time, if there was a JSR Expert Committee Vote, I'd expect James and Jeremy Rayner to vote. Of the 17 people or organizations listed in the expert group they seem to be the only ones left who are active (but please correct me if I'm wrong - I may have missed a corporate rep or two).

I might also note that the blog entry was a summary of why I quit the Groovy train. If you could in fact do objective research you might have found:

http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/2005/01/09/20.57.06/index.html

and

http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/2005/01/13/21.56.41/index.html

and

http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/2005/01/17/15.24.04/index.html

Not to mention several long blog entries under:

http://www.jroller.com/page/pyrasun/Weblog?catname=%2FGroovy

Before forming your opinion you have, of course, read _all_ of these references. Right Richard? It's ~15,000 words all on the topic of Groovy.

In fact if you look back through IRC logs and elsewhere you'll see that several of these articles triggered a more serious look at Groovy by the developers and the dawning of the realization of how much ambiguity there was.

In fact a certain guy named James Strachan left comments on the earlier blog entries commending their thoroughness and asking for more. Later comments by James obviously were not so glowing, since I'm now decidedly down on Groovy.

But you knew all of this already, right? After all, you're a Senior Analyst with the Burton Group! Surely you must research things in depth before giving your analytic opinion.

Right?

GROOVY IS IN BETA! Of course its going to change.

No need for shouting. I think we all know by know that Groovy is in Beta.

However, as I recall, the definition of 'beta' was something along the lines of 'feature complete, no known serious outstanding issues (bugs).'

Even 'alpha' means 'all major features implemented and working.'

So if major changes are still occurring to the very language itself, Groovy must still be in the development phase. There is nothing against releasing these builds into the wild, but it might be more honest to call them Technology Previews, Development Milestones or Developer Previews. That, to me at least, clearly indicates technology that is still in flux, which apparently Groovy still is.

However, as I recall, the definition of 'beta' was something along the lines of 'feature complete, no known serious outstanding issues (bugs).'

Even 'alpha' means 'all major features implemented and working.'

"The beta version of a product still awaits full debugging or full implementation of all its functionality, but satisfies a majority of the requirements."
   - Wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_stage

+1 to Maarten, and IMHO Richard should read the part on alpha-releases on Wikipedia again.

Just my 0.02€

I was wrong to attack Mike Spille on this mailing list. Here is my apology.

Thanks Richard.

Although it would have felt more sincere if you'd made it _before_ I sent a brief link to this thread to the Burton Group Manager of Public Relations. I somehow think the apology was more motivated by your boss than your own inner conscience.

Well it wasn't. I haven't heard anything from Burton Group about this. Their offices close at 5:00 p.m. Utah time, so the Manager of Public relations probably won't get it until the morning.

I don't regret making the apology. I just wish you had waited so that you would know that the apology was sincere. I deserve whatever is coming to me.