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Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next?

45 replies on 4 pages. Most recent reply: Nov 10, 2007 11:38 AM by Jamie Lawson

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Frank Sommers

Posts: 2642
Nickname: fsommers
Registered: Jan, 2002

Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 12:22 PM
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Summary
As developers desire to benefit from the conciseness and features of the multitude of languages that target the JVM, the question of which of those languages to master next comes up from time to time. Frederic Daoud points out the plusses and minuses of Groovy, JRuby, and Scala, showing a small illustrative program in each.
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The last few years saw great advances in alternative languages that target the JVM as their execution environment. JRuby, Scala, Groovy, and Jython emerged as four leading contenders to vie for the attention of developers wanting to master a second JVM language.

The benefits of learning another JVM-bound language are many, according to Frederic Daoud, who writes in a recent blog post, Groovy, (J)Ruby or Scala?:

I've tried out some Groovy, Ruby and Scala (not JRuby), and there are some nice things in there. Most interesting to me is the functional programming and object-oriented programming hybrid aspect. Being able to use existing Java libraries is a definite plus, and unless I'm mistaken ... with JRuby being available, all three languages are now more or less equal in that respect.

There would be several things to consider when choosing a language to learn, besides the language feature set itself; available tools, books, community, marketability.. but let's stick to just the language.

To illustrate the conciseness and syntax of each language, Daoud wrote a simple program in each that iterates over the lines in a set of files provided on the command line:

Groovy:

def MAXLENGTH = 70
args.each { filename ->
    new File(filename).eachWithIndex { line, lineNumber ->
        def length = line.size()
        if (length > MAXLENGTH) {
            println "$filename line=$lineNumber chars=$length"
        }
    }
}

Ruby:

MAXLENGTH = 70

$*.each do |filename|
  File.open(filename) do |file|
    file.each_line do |line|
      length = line.chomp.length
      if length > MAXLENGTH
        puts "#{filename} line=#{$.} chars=#{length}"
      end
    end
  end
end

Scala:

import scala.io.Source
val MAXLENGTH = 70
def process(filename: String) {
    var file = Source.fromFile(filename)
    var counted = file.getLines.counted
    counted.foreach(
        (line: String) => 
            if (line.length - 1 > MAXLENGTH) {
                println(filename + " line=" + (counted.count+1) + " chars=" + line.length)
            }
    )
}
args.foreach(process)

Which of these JVM languages do you think is most useful to learn? And which one is your favorite alternative JVM language?


James Watson

Posts: 2024
Nickname: watson
Registered: Sep, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 12:46 PM
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Hoe about Jython (Python). If I'm not mistaken here's the Python version.

MAXLENGTH = 70

def process(filename) {
f = open(filename)
i = 0
for line in f:
i = i + 1
if len(line) > MAXLENGTH:
print filename, "line=", i, "chars=", len(line)

for f in sys.argv:
process(f)

Maxim Noah Khailo

Posts: 25
Nickname: mempko
Registered: Nov, 2004

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 12:46 PM
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I find it interesting that for Groovy and Scala the indenting is much larger than that in Ruby. In the code you posted, it looks like Groovy and Scala indent five space in, while in Ruby, you had it indent three spaces.

Not to be a stickler, but you asked us to look at the "conciseness and syntax of each language"

The first thought that came to my mind is that the Ruby code felt less wordy and not as "horizontal". So I would say I would prefer the Ruby code.

But looking closer, if the Ruby code was indented the same amount...I would probably not think that and the ruby code would actually be more "horizontal" looking than Groovy or Scala.

Maxim Noah Khailo

Posts: 25
Nickname: mempko
Registered: Nov, 2004

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 12:47 PM
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Well, to correct myself, would look more horizontal than Groovy, but probably not Scala.

James Watson

Posts: 2024
Nickname: watson
Registered: Sep, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 12:55 PM
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replace { with : in my post

Kay Schluehr

Posts: 302
Nickname: schluehk
Registered: Jan, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 1:35 PM
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> Hoe about Jython (Python). If I'm not mistaken here's the
> Python version.

Jython 2.2 supports enumerate(). So one can omit the line counting boilerplate:

MAXLENGTH = 70

def process(filename):
for i,line in enumerate(open(filename)):
if len(line) > MAXLENGTH:
print filename, "line=", i+1, "chars=", len(line)

for f in sys.argv:
process(f)

James Watson

Posts: 2024
Nickname: watson
Registered: Sep, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 2:02 PM
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Cool, thanks.

Morel Xavier

Posts: 73
Nickname: masklinn
Registered: Sep, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 2:29 PM
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I support Scala, because it's a great language, because it's fast, and because it's not "just" the reimplementation of an existing language (JRuby/Jython) or a "me too" (Groovy).

Also, it has a nice type system.

Basically, I support scala because I think scala is (or tends to be) what Java should have been or should have become.

Plus it has pattern matching, none of the others have it, to my knowledge.

Daniel Berger

Posts: 1383
Nickname: djberg96
Registered: Sep, 2004

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 2:50 PM
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Ruby:

MAXLENGTH = 70

ARGF.each{ |line|
if line.chomp.length > MAXLENGTH
puts "#{ARGF.filename} line=#{ARGF.lineno} chars=#{line.length}"
end
}

J Banana

Posts: 1
Nickname: jbanana
Registered: Oct, 2007

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 4:11 PM
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I feel obliged to post some equivalent Java code:
import java.io.*;
public class LongLines{
   static int MAXLENGTH=70;
   public static void main(String[]args)
         throws Exception{
      for(String arg : args){
         BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader ( new FileReader ( arg ) );
         String line;
         for(int lineNo=0; null != (line=br.readLine()); lineNo++){
            if(line.length()>MAXLENGTH){
               System.out.println(arg+" line="+lineNo+" chars="+line.length());
            }
         }
      }
   }
}
However, I've consciously avoided any arror handling, which makes me uncomfortable. It looks as if the other language examples have too.

Dave Webb

Posts: 55
Nickname: lazydaze
Registered: Feb, 2006

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 4:36 PM
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Scala:

import scala.io.Source
val MAXLENGTH = 70
args.foreach { filename =>
var file = Source.fromFile(filename)
var counted = file.getLines.counted
counted.foreach { line =>
if (line.length - 1 > MAXLENGTH) {
Console.println(filename + " line=" + (counted.count+1) + " chars=" + line.length)
}
}
}

(No need for the explicit function def, and the types for the closure params can be inferred.)

Style-wise, they all look pretty much as good as each other to me, and a big improvement on Java, so selecting which language comes down to other factors such as static or dynamic typing.

Dirk Vleugels

Posts: 1
Nickname: dvl
Registered: Oct, 2007

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 4:47 PM
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Pnuts:

MAXLENGTH=70

for(f : $args[1..]) {
line = 0
readLines(f, function (l) {
::line = ::line + 1
ws = l.endsWith("\r\n") ? 2 : 1
if (l.length() > MAXLENGTH)
println(f + " line="+ line +" chars=" +( l.length() - ws ))
})
}


Cheers,
Dirk

Joao Pedrosa

Posts: 114
Nickname: dewd
Registered: Dec, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 6:25 PM
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In the past couple of days I have been giving JRuby some of my time, updating my libraries that depend on it like Swing and JDBC related. Before yesterday, I had never used Grizzly of Java fame, but I was interested in it and after fiddling with it a little I got it to work for me a little bit. There's still more work to do, but I am relatively happy with it, despite some "concurrency difficulties" I might have had as my other Ruby libraries that work with JRuby have not been created to work in a highly concurrent server as Java provides. :-) I am happy enough with both JRuby and Grizzly that I am posting a simple wrapper example for it in case somebody else needs some Java integration or incentive or some other use like creating a new framework specifically for JRuby with Grizzly and GlashFish or something:

require 'grizzly_http-utils.jar'
require 'grizzly_http.jar'
require 'grizzly_framework.jar'


import Java::com.sun.grizzly.http.SelectorThread
import Java::com.sun.grizzly.tcp.Adapter
import Java::com.sun.grizzly.tcp.OutputBuffer
import Java::com.sun.grizzly.tcp.Request
import Java::com.sun.grizzly.tcp.Response
import Java::com.sun.grizzly.util.buf.ByteChunk
import Java::java.net.HttpURLConnection


module GrizzlyWrapper


class RedirectException < Exception
end


class Response
attr_accessor :content_type, :charset, :body, :status
attr_reader :native

def initialize native
super()
@native = native
@cookies = {}
@body = nil
@content_type = 'text/html'
@charset = 'utf-8'
@status = 200
end

def cookies
@cookies
end

def redirect url, status = nil
@status = 302
prepare!{
@native.header['Location'] = url.to_s
}
raise RedirectException.new
end

def prepare!
cc = []
@cookies.each_pair{|k, v|
cc << "#{k}=#{v}; path=/"
}
s = @body || '<html></html>'
bytes = s.to_java_bytes
@native.setStatus @status
@native.setContentType @content_type
@native.setCharacterEncoding @charset
@native.setHeader 'Set-Cookie', "#{cc.join("; \n")}" if cc.size > 0
@native.setContentLength bytes.length
yield if block_given?
chunk = ByteChunk.new
chunk.append bytes, 0, bytes.length
buffer = @native.getOutputBuffer
buffer.doWrite chunk, @native
@native.finish
end

end


class Request
attr_reader :native

def initialize native
super()
@native = native
end

def header
h = {}
a = @native.getMimeHeaders
a.size.times{|i|
k = a.getName(i).to_s
v = a.getValue(i).to_s
k = k.downcase.gsub(/^http_/, '').gsub('_', '-')
h[k] = v
}
h
end

def path_info
@native.requestURI.to_s
end

end


class PremierAdapter
include Adapter

def initialize &block
super()
@main_block = block
end

def service request, response
mres = GrizzlyWrapper::Response.new(response)
mreq = GrizzlyWrapper::Request.new(request)
begin
@main_block[ mreq, mres ]
mres.prepare!
rescue RedirectException
#simply ignore
end
end

def afterService request, response
request.recycle
response.recycle
end

end


def self.start_http conf = {}, &block
adapter = GrizzlyWrapper::PremierAdapter.new(&block)
st = SelectorThread.new
st.setPort conf[:port] || 8282
st.setAdapter adapter
st.initEndpoint
st.startEndpoint
end

def self.quit_http
exit 0
end

end


if CommonRules.main_file?(__FILE__)
GrizzlyWrapper.start_http{|req, res|
res.content_type = 'text/html'
res.body = "Hello World! #{Time.new}"
}
end


I have tested it with JRuby from trunk, Java 6 and Grizzly 1.6.1. My classpath is like this:

CLASSPATH=/opt/jruby-1.1/lib/ruby/1.8/java/postgresql.jar:/opt/jruby-1.1 /lib/ruby/1.8/java/jruby_helpers.jar:/opt/simpleweb/jar/simple-3.1.3.jar:/opt/gr izzly/grizzly_http.jar:/opt/grizzly/grizzly_http-utils.jar:/opt/grizzly/grizzly_ framework.jar

I also put the relevant jars in a new JRuby directory which happens to be in my RUBYLIB path:

dewd@rubynho:~$ ls /opt/jruby-1.1/lib/ruby/1.8/java/
grizzly_framework.jar grizzly_http-utils.jar postgresql.jar
grizzly_http.jar jruby_helpers.jar simpleweb.jar

One can download Grizzly from http://download.java.net/maven/2/com/sun/grizzly/

I'd like to say that I am impressed with JRuby's ease of Java interface implementation, which is implemented like a Ruby mixin. I use it for Swing as well. I don't know what the future holds for JRuby, but as long as it works reliably for me I could use it more often. The compatibility with Ruby helps experimentation as I have just done. For instance, before I deleted my support for Simpleweb (as Grizzly should be better anyway), I had 4 Web servers working with JRuby (including Ruby's Mongrel and WEBrick which are supported as well - double cool).

Joao Pedrosa

Posts: 114
Nickname: dewd
Registered: Dec, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 6:34 PM
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BTW, sorry for the length of my previous message and sorry for leaving a line at the bottom ("if CommonRules.main_file?(__FILE__)") that depends on a library of mine. I tried to remove any dependencies on custom stuff and make it be runnable with pure JRuby, so the line should have been this one:

if $0 == __FILE__

:-) Way to go JRuby and Ruby!

Joao Pedrosa

Posts: 114
Nickname: dewd
Registered: Dec, 2005

Re: Groovy, JRuby, or Scala: Which JVM Language to Learn Next? Posted: Oct 12, 2007 7:05 PM
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Here's a little benchmark of Grizzly with JRuby using the wrapper above and the "ab" tool:

Concurrency Level: 100
Time taken for tests: 13.752185 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 1750700 bytes
HTML transferred: 410164 bytes
Requests per second: 727.16 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 137.522 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 1.375 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 124.27 [Kbytes/sec] received

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