Is Grails The Answer?

I certainly think so. Over the last few years, I've used a variety of Java web frameworks such as Struts, Spring MVC + Tapestry and various combinations of Spring, Hibernate, JPA + EJB. Before all those things came along, I even tried my hand at JSP's, vanilla servlets + JDBC. I got some decent results out of most of those frameworks, but at the same time, it was hard work and productivity wasn't very high on the agenda. However, once things like Rails + Django appeared on the scene, I started to wonder if I should be using Java in the first place? These new frameworks made use of more dynamic languages - Ruby and Python - and promised short development cycles and extremely high productivity.

But, having spent the best part of ten years becoming a Java expert, moving to an entirely new platform seemed like a very big jump - particularly in the case of Ruby/Rails. After all, the JVM is (in my opinion) one of Java's biggest strengths - if only there was an easier way to tap that potential. Enter Groovy + Grails! I'd been following Groovy pretty closely for a while and really liked the look of it, eg. its extensive use of closures. I was also aware of Grails, but the name put me off slightly - it just seemed to be shouting "me too!" a little too loudly for my liking. But following my disappointment with Google App Engine, I decided it was finally time to take the plunge.

I needn't have worried. Quite simply, Groovy + Grails is the best web framework I have ever used in any language. After just one day (which included frequently referring to the documentation) I had full CRUD functionality for a set of polymorphic domain classes. Following that, adding an Authentication Filter was a breeze, creating a Custom Tag Library was incredibly easy and even Ajax Integration (so often where complexity starts to creep in) wasn't too unpleasant. And here's the best part ... all these features build on my existing knowledge of Servlets, Spring, Hibernate, etc, so I'm not learning a whole new technology stack from scratch.

After three days I had an application that was every bit as functional as its Google App Engine equivalent, which took a similar amount of time. I'll admit that I haven't strayed too far from the golden path, but so far, all the signs are extremely encouraging. There's plenty of support out there and the user community is extremely active. I've also read reports of companies using Grails for real-world sites, which is more than some of the latest frameworks can boast. I'll keep you posted ...