Sun begins to fund JVM scripting languages

[Tom Nichols]

On 9/7/06, Eric Brown <yogieric@...> wrote:
> 6. Rails is important and supporting jruby for that is interesting.
> Especially if we can eventually use groovy for rails classes.

Groovy + Grails is _much_ more appropriate than JRuby on Rails if you
are already bound to a Java environment.  Grails can deploy to any
servlet container, and looks just like any other servlet application.
I don't know how one would deploy JRuby on Rails in a production
environment, but somehow I doubt it has the same level of
interoperability that Grails has.

This is what perplexes me the most -- I imagine the rails
(+dependencies) in Ruby code re-implements a lot of things that have
already been done in Java.  Conversely, Groovy+ Grails is able to
leverage and build _on_top_of_ the standard frameworks that have
already been proven.  Granted it is not finished, but I think when
you're talking about choices _for_ the Java platform, the choice
becomes clear.  The only thing that Groovy/ Grails doesn't have going
for it is its maturity.  Somebody already mentioned that a single
full-time developer could solve this for Groovy.

Not to mention, what happens when a language feature doesn't map
correctly to the underlying platform that you're trying to port it to?
 I seem to remember a similar problem when the IronPythoin ppl were
trying to figure out how to leverage .NET Annotations from Python.  I
think there is an advantage to building a language specifically for
the platform (VM) it's meant to run on.

I guess I sound negative, but I'm perplexed by the decision.  If I was
a new software shop and I could pick my platform (JVM, .NET, Ruby)
_then_ there are things to consider.  If I was already established as
a Java shop...  The choice seems clear -- you choose the scripting
language & framework that most closely integrates with the Java
platform, its associated standards and APIs.

Just my opinion, nothing more.  I'll keep using Groovy and Grails as
long as I'm working for a Java shop.  Best of luck to the JRuby guys.
I'm sure they've done an awesome job.  I just hope Sun actually
provides solid dynamic language support and a 'standard' scripting
language for the JVM.

Thanks.
-Tom

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[Russel Winder]

On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 18:18 -0700, Cédric Beust ♔ wrote:
> Guys, I think you're reading way too much into this.

Yes and no.  It is not necessarily the action or the intention, it is
the interpretation and the consequences.

> Tim likes the language and the product and he decided to hire the two
> developers.  That's it.  End of story.

That may be true as an explicit conscious action by Tim and by Sun that
is not the point.  The point in that the action will be interpreted by
others and positions taken independent of Sun.  Just look at this
thread.

So for example
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/09/07/JRuby-guys mentions
JRuby, PHP and Python, also RoR (and Perl but we ignore that :-)  So the
interpretation is that BeanShell, Groovy, etc. are not in the mind set
of the people in sun who move and shake and have budget.  It is this
rather than any explicit action that is important as it says BeanShell
and Groovy are not in any plans for any budget holders at Sun.

For me this is a poor strategy.  Python and Ruby are great languages.
Standalone.  Jython and JRuby have an data type mismatch that hinders
them on the JVM and interworking with Java.  BeanShell and Groovy do
not.

If Sun need to get their engineers conversant with programming using
closures on the JVM preparing for the Bracha/Gafter/et al. proposal then
why go to JRuby rather than Groovy?  Why not just use Ruby?

I would have thought it made sense for Sun to actively push both
BeanShelll and Groovy.  They are already in the system and they have
active communities.  The fact that they do not is the telling point just
now.

> Knowing how Sun works, I'm pretty sure there is nothing more to it,
> and it's certainly no sign that Sun is putting more weight behind Ruby
> or JRuby.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with this.  It may not be an explicit
action of Sun or even an explicit thought within Sun but what is being
done and the way it is being presented is telling of the collective mind
set, and that has far reaching consequences.

Clearly this is not a NetBeans like situation.

If I were a CTO (I have been and will be again), I would be watching
JRuby more closely now and wondering how Sun are going to get over the
data type mismatch and the "double library" effect.  This is now an
official Sun project, not the part-time backroom activity of two
dedicated guys.  Unlike BeanShell and Groovy which have survived despite
being a part-time backroom development.

On the other hand Self became an official Sun project and look where
that is now.

> Having said that, the fact the it's taking so long to Groovy to come
> up with a 1.0 release has certainly contributed to making it look like
> a toy project to a lot of people.

A bit like JRuby and Jython then :-)

As I have said in the past, the main issue is needing one or two people
paid to work on the internals of Groovy and on the website (which is
poor) and the general documentation (which is mostly in the heads of
people not in documents).  We need a GroovyDoc.  Urgently.  I believe
there needs to be a not-for-profit/charitable organization of some sort
responsible for collecting donations and sponsorship and funding work,
almost certainly on a project basis rather than an employment basis.

The problem is not that Groovy has taken so long to get to 1.0 but that
the organization behind it needs to evolve from part-time, volunteer
open-source project to a professional open source project working with
volunteers.  The difference is crucial.  As evidence I present Linux,
Gnome, KDE, Python.

--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[Russel Winder]

On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 13:56 -0700, Eric Brown wrote:
> 1. I really have high hopes for groovy. But I don't think it has the  
> popularity or user-base of ruby and python yet. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think you are right and you are wrong :-)  I think the user base for
Python and Ruby is much larger than that of Groovy (or BeanShell).
However the user base for Jython and JRuby is probably smaller than that
of Groovy and BeanShell -- for now anyway.  The Groovy community is very
active and, most importantly, growing.

> 2. Microsoft is embracing python for .net.

Possibly but I bet VB and C++/.NET remain the principle languages of
development.

> 3. jython is way behind cpython (unlike jruby). (cpython is at 2.5  
> while jython is still at 2.2-2.3) And it is my understanding that  
> Python's creator, Guido, has indicated he thinks ironpython has much  
> more performance potential than the way jython was written. That's  
> just the view I've heard and I hope it is misinformed as I use jython  
> all the time for testing my java stuff and find it plenty fast enough  
> as an interpreter. (Though starting it with a large classpath is  
> painfully slow.) jython is moving forward, but I don't think it has  
> dedicated individuals like ironpython (.net/employed by microsoft)  
> and jruby (employed by sun).

Jython has missed the boat and unless someone picks it up and gives it a
good injection of development I think it is probably now just a point on
the graph of the history of programming languages.  Unless I have missed
something of course.

> 4. Sun has already implemented visualbasic. But I can't imagine java/
> python/ruby/groovy developers moving to visualbasic (or even  
> javascript) on top of java just to get dynamic languages. Python,  
> ruby and groovy are interesting languages for reasons I have trouble  
> explaining. (Maybe they're just fun?)

"Do not underestimate the *power* of the dark side..."  If Microsoft
pays enough money to enough people VB will be the programming language
we all work in.

> 5. One thing that keeps me in jython and jirb is a decent interpreter  
> with readline support. I don't like the way groovy or beanshell  
> require 'go' or whatever to run what was recently typed in. In fact,  
> I wish ipython could run jython -- that's the nicest interpreter  
> environment I've seen. Please let me know if I'm just missing the  
> boat on some groovy or beanshell interpreter environment I don't know  
> about.

I think everyone agrees that go has to go but no-one has picked up the
task to get it done.  Volunteer needed.

> 6. Rails is important and supporting jruby for that is interesting.  
> Especially if we can eventually use groovy for rails classes.

Surely Grails is a better solution on the JVM than JRuby on Rails?

> 7. I believe the jruby folks are looking to generate byte-codes in  
> some instances. I don't really know though and groovy is certainly  
> ahead there.

Ruby is an interpreted language.  Using a Ruby Virtual Machine has been
mooted but currently it is interpreted.  Compiling to byte code on the
JVM is clearly fairly sensible but they will have to be very careful
about the semantics/performance issues.  They are deep and complex.
--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[Russel Winder]

On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 22:18 +0200, Michael Baehr wrote:
> That's exactly the problem - Groovy is mostly an European thing!
>
> I think the Americans invented the "not invented here" syndrome ...
>
> By the way, I'm German, but l live a little bit closer to the US - in
> Jamaica, to be exact.

It is certainly a widespread prejudice in Europe that Americans only
consider home grown product and ignore anything not invented or build
within the confines of the USA.

It would be a sad, sad day if Sun were to prove that they actually did
really suffer from such a syndrome.

(Of course USA import and export regulation do rather reinforce the
whole mess.  For believers in free trade the USA regulations are
incredibly protectionist.)

--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[Russel Winder]

On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 22:48 +0200, Michael Baehr wrote:
> Ok, a wild idea - if Sun can sponsor the JRuby developers, why can't
> the Groovy community sponsor the Groovy developers?

Far from wild.

The question is who in Sun has the interest in Groovy and the budget to
back up that interest?

Or Oracle.

Or IBM.

It comes back to there needed to be an organization that is recognized
as "owing" Groovy.
 
--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[Russel Winder]

On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 16:58 -0400, Tom Nichols wrote:

> It seems that the .NET platform has had better dynamic support (they
> have a 'dynamicMethod', which I think is equivalent to Java's proposed
> 'invokeDynamic').  I think formal support of dynamic languages is only
> going to become more important both in the enterprise space, and to
> attract new programmers

And of course the .NET platform actually supports parameterized types
unlike the JVM.

Grrrr..... if I think about erasure again, I shall get into rant mode.
It is the single most stupid thing about the JVM. Grrrr.....

--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[Jochen Theodorou]

Cédric Beust ♔ schrieb:
> Guys, I think you're reading way too much into this.
>
> Tim likes the language and the product and he decided to hire the two
> developers.  That's it.  End of story.
>
> Knowing how Sun works, I'm pretty sure there is nothing more to it, and
> it's certainly no sign that Sun is putting more weight behind Ruby or
> JRuby.

I am sure there is nothing more to it. But I still will have to explain
this.

> Having said that, the fact the it's taking so long to Groovy to come up
> with a 1.0 release has certainly contributed to making it look like a
> toy project to a lot of people.

The JRuby people are talking about having 15 developers, and now 2 full
time. And all that for a mostly predefined language. Groovy is working
with much less ressources. Groovy could gain much speed with at last 1
full time developer. Ah.. well.. I think it doesn't help to complain here.

Is Groovy a better language than JRuby, I think it certainly is. Is
being a better language alone enough? No, it isn't.

bye blackdrag

--
Jochen Theodorou
Groovy Tech Lead
http://blackdragsview.blogspot.com/

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[glaforge]

Cédric Beust ♔-2 wrote:

Guys, I think you're reading way too much into this.

Tim likes the language and the product and he decided to hire the two
developers.  That's it.  End of story.

Knowing how Sun works, I'm pretty sure there is nothing more to it, and it's
certainly no sign that Sun is putting more weight behind Ruby or JRuby.

Having said that, the fact the it's taking so long to Groovy to come up with
a 1.0 release has certainly contributed to making it look like a toy project
to a lot of people.

That sounds a bit like a weak argument, because:
- JRuby is older than Groovy
- JRuby hasn't managed to cope 100% with the very latest Ruby lingo
- JRuby is not 1.0 either

Companies making a choice of a scripting language will dive deeper than that superfecial approach.
Look for instance at Scott's comment regarding what and how a Fortune 500 chose Groovy over other alternatives.
Java shops which need a deep integration with Java's backends would rather use the language that marries itself the best with the JVM and the Java libraries.

Guillaume

[Marc Palmer Local]

On 7 Sep 2006, at 21:11, Scott Hickey wrote:

>
>> Or to say it different... what should I
>> answer a CEO when I am
>> asking for financial support, when he asks me why he
>> should support
>> Groovy, when Sun does support JRuby? I really don't
>> know what I should
>> say here :(
>>
>> bye blackdrag
>
> The conciseness, readability, peformance, etc... of
> BeanShell, JRuby, Ruby, and Groovy are not identical.
> All things being equal, Sun suppport of JRuby might
> make a difference. But in real world project, things
> are never equal. At least for my project, comparing
> languages side by side with real application spoke
> volumes. We read code much more often that we write
> it. To my eye, Groovy easily stood out as the *best*
> code noise reducer.

Let's not forget that, most people with experience and independent  
minds in the Java world know that a lot of the major APIs etc that  
come direct from Sun (or Sun and co-sponsors) are... quite badly  
done. The language is great, but in so many cases the APIs suck.

So - you could say that NOT being directly funded by Sun is a benefit  
for your credibility. However I would say that finding high profile  
partners is important, but it doesn't have to be Sun.

Exhibit A - J2ME, a real hash in terms of poor TCKs and certification  
of blatantly broken implementations
Exhibit B - Swing ;-)
Exhibit C - EJB 1 and 2
Exhibit D - JSP

...need I go on :)  I don't want to start a religious flame war here,  
so please don't fill the list with disagreements/challenges on the  
above. I know many people will disagree, but as many will agree.

It's just an opinion.

Best wishes,
Marc


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[Marc Palmer Local]

On 7 Sep 2006, at 21:09, Jochen Theodorou wrote:

> Michael Baehr schrieb:
>> That must feel like a low blow, but don't get discouraged!
>> But definitely Groovy needs a lobby in the US! Groovy evangelist  
>> anyone?
>
> lobby in the US... yes.. well... not so easy from europe. Most of  
> the developers are from europe. To be evangelist in the US you need  
> money for traveling and a job allowing you to do that. But you  
> won't even get a H class visa these days, because they have already  
> given out all for this year.
>
> Additionally JRuby gets some of the momentum of the RoR hype.
>
> If you have hints on how to create a lobby in the US please tell us!

I would say this is actually going to come quite easily when:

* We get to a stable 1.0
* We have first-class documentation for all language features and the  
GDK
* We get Grails to 1.0 and show the world how much better it is on  
"the other side of the track" :)

 From there we can then hope to get:

* Critical mass in terms of blog coverage, screencasts etc
* Large increases in user base

Groovy still seems to be quite low profile in net terms. Ruby, as I  
understand it has been around for a long time as was rather low  
profile, but only rocketed to stardom because of RoR.

It seems that the languages are not as sexy as the apps or frameworks  
that run on them. Most mature engineers know that it's not the  
language you use that is so important as how quickly and well you can  
get the job done. That's the secret of Rails success surely, not how  
"great" Ruby is. Ruby and Groovy are "just" the enablers.

We will have the stronger foundations...

$0.02

Marc
~ ~ ~
Marc Palmer (marc@...)
Consultant/Analyst
AnyWare Ltd.
http://www.anyware.co.uk/


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[Jon Skeet]

> > 2. Microsoft is embracing python for .net.
>
> Possibly but I bet VB and C++/.NET remain the principle languages of
> development.

Did you really mean C++/.NET? I think there are far more C# developers
than MC++ developers - there's certainly more visibility of C# than
managed C++.

Just wondering...

Jon

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[tugwilson]

On 8 Sep 2006, at 07:00, Russel Winder wrote:

> So for example
> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/09/07/JRuby-guys mentions
> JRuby, PHP and Python, also RoR (and Perl but we ignore that :-)  
> So the
> interpretation is that BeanShell, Groovy, etc. are not in the mind set
> of the people in sun who move and shake and have budget.  It is this
> rather than any explicit action that is important as it says BeanShell
> and Groovy are not in any plans for any budget holders at Sun.


Don't read too much into Tim's posting. He's a good hearted XML  
expert. He's not a language guy. The people who know about  
programming languages and about the JVM know about Groovy.

This discussion reminds me very much of the brouhaha which arose when  
the Groovy JSR was approved. I don't really think it shows Sun's  
endorsement of one scripting language over another - it's a simple  
attempt to help  and interesting project which could help Sun's  
business and which had resource problems. The question of whether  
injecting the ony two developers of a Open Source project into a  
politically dynamic environment like Sun will actually help the  
project awaits an answer:)


John Wilson
The Wilson Partnership
web http://www.wilson.co.uk
blog http://eek.ook.org



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[Chorg Heavy Industries]

I heard something
about a PHP reference implementation on the Java scripting API,

I do a lot of PHP programming. This is a horrible idea. If sun wants java to become much more popular, it needs a good shared hosting situation.
Horrible idea.

[Russel Winder]

On Fri, 2006-09-08 at 11:34 +0100, Jon Skeet wrote:

> Did you really mean C++/.NET? I think there are far more C# developers
> than MC++ developers - there's certainly more visibility of C# than
> managed C++.
>
> Just wondering...

MC++ is dead as far as I know, C++/.NET is the language that Herb Sutter
is driving forward for Microsoft -- but there is a lot of debate about
whether it should be allowed to be called C++ at all !

Yes you are right I should have listed C# as well.
--
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...

[Marc Palmer Local]

On 8 Sep 2006, at 07:00, Russel Winder wrote:

>
> That may be true as an explicit conscious action by Tim and by Sun  
> that
> is not the point.  The point in that the action will be interpreted by
> others and positions taken independent of Sun.  Just look at this
> thread.
>
> So for example
> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/09/07/JRuby-guys mentions
> JRuby, PHP and Python, also RoR (and Perl but we ignore that :-)  
> So the
> interpretation is that BeanShell, Groovy, etc. are not in the mind set
> of the people in sun who move and shake and have budget.  It is this
> rather than any explicit action that is important as it says BeanShell
> and Groovy are not in any plans for any budget holders at Sun.

OK so has the team of primary Groovy devs sent a joint mail to Tim /  
Sun asking for a meeting to discuss Groovy and Java and their future  
together? Sounds like a good idea to me... they might even pay for  
the trip, or come to a mutually agreed European place


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[Michael Baehr-2]

Maybe they should send one to IBM as well ...

On 9/8/06, Marc Palmer <marc@...> wrote:

>
> On 8 Sep 2006, at 07:00, Russel Winder wrote:
>
> >
> > That may be true as an explicit conscious action by Tim and by Sun
> > that
> > is not the point.  The point in that the action will be interpreted by
> > others and positions taken independent of Sun.  Just look at this
> > thread.
> >
> > So for example
> > http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/09/07/JRuby-guys mentions
> > JRuby, PHP and Python, also RoR (and Perl but we ignore that :-)
> > So the
> > interpretation is that BeanShell, Groovy, etc. are not in the mind set
> > of the people in sun who move and shake and have budget.  It is this
> > rather than any explicit action that is important as it says BeanShell
> > and Groovy are not in any plans for any budget holders at Sun.
>
> OK so has the team of primary Groovy devs sent a joint mail to Tim /
> Sun asking for a meeting to discuss Groovy and Java and their future
> together? Sounds like a good idea to me... they might even pay for
> the trip, or come to a mutually agreed European place
>
>
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>

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[Michael Baehr-2]

Well, the wild part was that the community is coming up with some
money, not the big companys like Sun or IBM.

Ok, I talked the talk, now I have to walk the walk!

I'm just a freelancer, but I'm sure that Groovy will help me to get
some work done faster (which means I'll make more money).

For now, I'm offering 100 Euro per month for the next 12 months, or
alternatively 200 Euro per month for the next 6 months - probably
better to get Groovy 1.0 on track.

Of course that only makes sense if I'm not the only one ...

On 9/8/06, Russel Winder <russel@...> wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 22:48 +0200, Michael Baehr wrote:
> > Ok, a wild idea - if Sun can sponsor the JRuby developers, why can't
> > the Groovy community sponsor the Groovy developers?
>
> Far from wild.
>
> The question is who in Sun has the interest in Groovy and the budget to
> back up that interest?
>
> Or Oracle.
>
> Or IBM.
>
> It comes back to there needed to be an organization that is recognized
> as "owing" Groovy.
>
> --
> Russel.
> ====================================================
> Dr Russel Winder                [phone]
> 41 Buckmaster Road              [phone]
> London SW11 1EN, UK             russel@...
>
>
>

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[Warner Onstine-3]

Been reading through all of the emails, one interesting thing is that
this *small* fact isn't lost on the RoR community. Whether or not Sun
is supporting JRuby or Ruby doesn't matter, the communities as a whole
(Groovy, RoR, etc.) see this as an implicit support of Ruby (and as a
side-effect RoR).

Just wanted to point this out to those of you who aren't on the Rails
mailing list.

-warner

On 9/7/06, John Wilson <tug@...> wrote:

> http://headius.blogspot.com/2006/09/jruby-steps-into-sun.html
>
> Congratulations to our Hausmates:)
>
>
> John Wilson
> The Wilson Partnership
> web http://www.wilson.co.uk
> blog http://eek.ook.org
>
>
>
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[Cedric Beust]

On 9/8/06, glaforge <glaforge@...> wrote:

That sounds a bit like a weak argument, because:
- JRuby is older than Groovy
- JRuby hasn't managed to cope 100% with the very latest Ruby lingo
- JRuby is not 1.0 either

True, but it should be easier for a language that is invented from scratch to declare "we're done" than when you're trying to implement an existing language and you aim at being 100% compatible.

Companies making a choice of a scripting language will dive deeper than that
superfecial approach.
Look for instance at Scott's comment regarding what and how a Fortune 500
chose Groovy over other alternatives.

No arguments there. To me, Groovy is the best fit for any project that already has a sizeable established Java code base (although I'd argue that for simple tasks, BeanShell is a better fit).

But you won't know if Groovy will be a success or a failure until after you ship 1.0.

I know, I'm sounding like a broken record, but I look back over these past three years and I just can't believe that 1.0 is still not out.

--
Cédric
http://testng.org

[glaforge]

On 9/8/06, Cédric Beust ♔ <cedric@...> wrote:
> True, but it should be easier for a language that is invented from scratch
> to declare "we're done" than when you're trying to implement an existing
> language and you aim at being 100% compatible.

We're aiming at being 100% compatible with the idea we have of what
Groovy should be :-)
It's also a pretty high expectation we have on what we produce!

> [...]
> No arguments there. To me, Groovy is the best fit for any project that
> already has a sizeable established Java code base (although I'd argue that
> for simple tasks, BeanShell is a better fit).
>
> But you won't know if Groovy will be a success or a failure until after you
> ship 1.0.

It's used here and there, in big or small companies, famous or lesser
known ones.
When do you know something is successful?

> I know, I'm sounding like a broken record, but I look back over these past
> three years and I just can't believe that 1.0 is still not out.

It's funny how much you always focus on the "version number".
We could have said beta-8 be 1.0, jsr-1 be 2.0 and the upcoming RC-1
be Groovy 3.0?
A number doesn't mean anything in the end.
But we've decided to set up a roadmap, with this or that feature, and
we're thinking 1.0 should be the version with all the features we
wanted. Though it could've been 3.0.
Who really cares about the version number?
Do I care if Google Reader is still in beta though I use the service
and like it?
Groovy's already good for production use, and people using it there
are happy with it.

--
Guillaume Laforge
Groovy Project Manager
http://glaforge.free.fr/blog/groovy