In his column in JDJ-Java Developers Journal, Onno Kluyt introduces us to the latest JSR 241. As Onno describes JSR241 ” the goal for this JSR is to standardize the specification for the Groovy programming language so that platform implementors, tool vendors and others can provide compliant implementations for their developers to use with the Java platform.” In effect, what Onno is telling us is that the official scripting language for Java is a done deal – its Groovy.
Hmmm.
What happened to Jacl, Jython, Judoscript, Beanshell, BSF, NetRexx, Rhino, Swig and other scripting language which expose Java classes, produce bytecode and are cross platform. These are some awfully nice scripting languages ( you owe it to yourself to try one or two – they are modest downloads and easy to install and tryout). What happened to them ? Why did untried Groovy go to the head of the line in front of these promising scripting tools? Do or did they get a hearing ? Or are they condemned to the process of “improving Groovy” through the JSR rather than supplanting it?
Obviously I missed something here. But I agree with JavaPros Daniel Savarese, I am not convinced Groovy is even close to being a clearcut winner as the official scripting language for Java.