Ruby vs. Groovy: your perspective

[Logan Barnett]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Hehe, depends on what exactly JVM means. The machine
architecture? Or the emulator, which in case of Sun's JVM
is not open-source. OpenJDK seems to be open source, except a few
binary
plugs ("Not all of the source code that makes up the JDK is available
under an open-source license") [1].

Run everywhere? Have you ever tried Java on DOS . I remember running
Ruby under DOS . Okay lets agree on run everywhere, where everywhere
means 95-99% of all machines.

I'm pretty sure I run Java on DOS (or equivalent) every day. There's
even an example in this thread!

jruby -S gem install hpricot

You can also kick off any Java application from the command line with
`java -jar myapp.jar`.

Don't forget that Java also runs on some mobile devices as well. Some
folks have gotten JRuby running on Android phones.

Logan Barnett
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.logustus.com

 

[Michael Bruschkewitz]

Michael Bruschkewitz said:

Sure, the barrier to entry is lower. Also, as a manager type, I often
encounter devs who treat their day job as just that and are not
interested or motivated to learn more than they have to - they quietly
drive me nuts, to be honest! If this is the case, then Groovy is more
likely to succeed - and you won't encounter quiet hostility every day at
work!

Hello Marc,
your arguments target "devs" - I suppose you mean "software developers".
But you don't know which is the environment of OP.
Imagine, he develops software for medical devices, for example. Most
probably, people in his environment would be highly specialized biologists,
physicists, physicians a.s.o. which only accidentally do something related
to software. Maybe adapting some parameters. Forcing them to learn another
language just because it's "better" some way would be wasting resources.
Imagine space, car, rail, weapons, energy related projects - everywhere you
will work with people which are highly specialized on their area. In most
real-world projects, you will have tight deadlines. So, low entry barriers
are important for the success of most projects.
That's for short term.

For long term I supposed both languages for reasons as you mentioned below.

Unfortunately, OP did not tell about his needs or environment.

If you have "old skool" devs who are interested in their work, then I'd
push on with JRuby (and by association Ruby).

It always depends on (their) plans for future. And depends on how much time
is needed or available until targets must be reached.

Ruby isn't "better",
necessarily, but it has features that allow you to do things a lot more
tersely than Java, which I'm sure we'll agree is rather a verbose
language, and I like that.
There's also an element of simply using and doing something different.
It's refreshing, invigorating, and I believe aids creativity.

No doubt.

 

[marc]

Michael Bruschkewitz said:

Hello Marc,
your arguments target "devs" - I suppose you mean "software developers".
But you don't know which is the environment of OP.

Sure, the OP was looking for subjective views, and they can only be based
on the limited info provided; I wasn't writing a thesis!

Imagine, he develops
software for medical devices, for example. Most probably, people in his
environment would be highly specialized biologists, physicists,
physicians a.s.o. which only accidentally do something related to
software. Maybe adapting some parameters. Forcing them to learn another
language just because it's "better" some way would be wasting resources.

No-one suggested forcing anyone to do anything; that is almost certainly
guaranteed to fail. But I certainly don't agree that devs learning a new
language (identified as appropriate) is a waste of resources; a bean
counter might, but not an experienced technologist.

Imagine space, car, rail, weapons, energy related projects - everywhere
you will work with people which are highly specialized on their area. In
most real-world projects, you will have tight deadlines. So, low entry
barriers are important for the success of most projects. That's for
short term.

For long term I supposed both languages for reasons as you mentioned
below.

Unfortunately, OP did not tell about his needs or environment.


It always depends on (their) plans for future. And depends on how much
time is needed or available until targets must be reached.

Sure, it always depends. That's the nature of systems with constraints.

 

[Rick DeNatale]

Hello,
I realise this is a very hot topic... and people have strong feelings
about either language. I am not trying to trolling.

Still I've heard a bit about Groovy and it kind of seems like the Java
answer to Ruby (even the names are kind of similar). So I was
wondering if that kind of "first citizen" status will eventually make
it take over Ruby as a dynamic language (assuming that indeed that the
Groovy language offers everything Ruby does).

I checked online, but websites are either very old, or too "official".
So I wanted to ask my fellow Ruby programmers, who probably share
similar preferences to mine.

I don't think anyone has already mentioned this, but Yehuda Katz
posted this a few days ago it contrasts one aspect of Ruby vs. Groovy.

http://yehudakatz.com/2009/06/04/the-importance-of-executable-class-bodies/

--
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale