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by Vinny Carpenter.
Original Post: Goodbye Groovy - Hello Ruby
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Feed Description: Welcome to my blog. I am a total Java geek that lives in Milwaukee, making my living as an architect/developer, spending all my time with Java, J2EE, OO, Linux, and open source. In my spare time, when I am not in front of my computers, I spend every other minute with my other loves: My wife, books, music, guitars, Formula-1 racing and StarGate. Check out my blog @ http://www.j2eegeek.com/blog
I guess the wheels are coming off the Groovy bandwagon and I am jumping off before it's too late. I've blogged about Groovy before and how I had drunk the Kool-Aid. I loved Groovy and that love was based on Java and the fact that I could use my existing Java classes in my Groovy apps and vica versa. But the JSR hasn't brought the excitement to the Groovy cause that I had hoped and so I am now officially jumping off the bandwagon.
I've tinkered with Ruby before – Dave Thomas makes a great case to explore Ruby or any other programming language to expand your horizons and learn to think differently. I guess I finally get a chance to take a serious look at Ruby and see if it can fill the gap I currently have for simple tasks that don't need all the features of Java. I'm sure most developers write simple 'one-off' applications that read the database, send emails, parse a file and stuff it in the database, etc. Ruby seems like a nice solution to fill that role at face value.
The only apprehension I have with Groovy and Ruby and many of the other technologies out there is the introduction of these technologies in the enterprise. Like most developers, I have a full-time job where I work with a team of developers with varied skills. As the technical lead, I am always looking for 'things' that make our development team deliver a better solution, faster and cheaper. But the introduction of anything new comes with consequences – Developers need to get comfortable with the new technology and feel confident writing code using that technology. Support people need to understand the new 'thing' and how to debug, explore issues, etc. All these factors have to be taken into consideration before exposing the developers to something new. I need to spend more time reading the Ruby Insurgency presentation from Dave Thomas, which is a nice presentation on how to successfully introduce Ruby into your organization.
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