A few months ago I posted an update, with a section near the bottom titled “RoR (Ruby on Rails) and other next generations frameworks."  And in that section I made the statement …

About two years ago I was introduced to Ruby on Rails and since then, most of my development work has been with RoR.  Thus far, however, I haven’t posted anything on this blog about RoR.  Why?  Two reasons.  The apps I’ve written to date have absolutely nothing to do with VMware.  And second, like I said, I’m an amateur.  Anyone looking for RoR help and advice can probably find better info on actual RoR blogs. … But I’ve decided that this is about to change.

But since that post, I have yet to write anything about RoR. Why? Believe it or not, I’ve got a really good reason.  You may have recently heard that VMware has acquired a company called SpringSource.  And SpringSource offers support for a similar type of language and framework which has deep roots in Java, called Goovy and Grails (in addition to a slew of other Java related products and services).  From the SpringSource website …

Grails is an advanced and innovative open source web application platform that delivers new levels of developer productivity by applying principles like Convention over Configuration.

 

Groovy is the leading open source dynamic language for the Java Virtual Machine that offers a flexible Java-like syntax that most Java developers can learn in matter of hours.

Once I learned about the acquisition, I had to make a decision. Do I continue down the RoR path? Or do I switch gears and go in the direction that VMware’s going? Not that it’s impossible to be good at both — or even difficult for a true developer — but I’m not a developer by trade and I’ve got too much going on in my life and with VMware to focus on more than one language and framework at at time.

Now, this may sound like an easy decision, as it would naturally make sense to follow my employer’s lead. But while I’ve played with may different languages in my past (e.g. C++, Visual Basic, Perl and Ruby) and even become fairly proficient in one or two, the one language I’ve avoided has been Java. Frankly, Java just isn’t fun for the amateur developer, in my humble opinion. But after doing my homework and reading numerous blog posts such as Bye bye Ruby, hello Groovy I decided to make the switch.

And so far I’m pretty happy with my decision. Groovy may have Java-like syntax, but it is a dynamic language that is a lot of fun to code in and it’s and pretty darn powerful. I’ve already finished my first web app written in Groovy and Grails (a reporting and graphing tool that the local OHV rep’s and SE’s will use) and it’s about to go live.  So right now, I’m feeling pretty Groovy.

Actually, as I type this, I’m at the New Orleans airport after three days at SpringOne 2GX where I’ve been immersed in all things Groovy, Grails, Spring, etc. It’s been a great event, where I sat in on many fantastic sessions and got to meet super crazy smart people. That’s always fun for me. But right now I’m in information overload. I need to compile my notes (which I had to take by hand because my laptop battery decided to reduce it’s charge life to about 5min.  Grrrrr.) and put them into something meaningful for the audience of this blog, which for the most part are not developers.

Until next time, check out Groovy and Grails and read the good tutorials out there like …

• Mastering Grails by Scott Davis
• The Official Grails Quick Start Guide
• Grails and Google AppEngine Beginners Guide by Morten Nielsen
• The Groovy Getting Started Guide