Scala vs Groovy vs Clojure

Question

Can someone please explain the major differences between Scala  Groovy and Clojure  I know each of these compiles to run on the JVM but I d like a simple comparison between them

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I m reading the Pragmatic Programmers book  Groovy Recipes  Greasing the wheels of Java  by Scott Davis  Copyright 2008 and printed in April of the same year    It s a bit out of date but the book makes it clear that Groovy is literally an extension of Java  I can write Java code that functions exactly like Java and rename the file   groovy and it works fine  According to the book  the reverse is true if I include the requisite libraries  So far  experimentation seems to bear this out

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Groovy is a dynamically typed language  whose syntax is very close to Java  with a number of syntax improvements that allow for lighter code and less boilerplate  It can run through an interpreter as well as being compiled  which makes it good for fast prototyping  scripts  and learning dynamic languages without having to learn a new syntax  assuming you know Java   As of Groovy 2 0  it also has growing support for static compilation  Groovy supports closures and has support for programming in a somewhat functional style  although it s still fairly far from the traditional definition of functional programming   Clojure is a dialect of Lisp with a few advanced features like Software Transactional Memory  If you like Lisp and would like to use something like it under the JVM  Clojure is for you  It s possibly the most functional language running on the JVM  and certainly the most famous one  Also  it has a stronger emphasis on immutability than other Lisp dialects  which takes it closer to the heart of functional language enthusiasts   Scala is a fully object oriented language  more so than Java  with one of the most advanced type systems available on non-research languages  and certainly the most advanced type system on the JVM  It also combines many concepts and features of functional languages  without compromising the object orientation  but its compromise on functional language characteristics put off some enthusiasts of the latter   Groovy has good acceptance and a popular web framework in Grails  It also powers the Gradle build system  which is becoming a popular alternative to Maven  I personally think it is a language with limited utility  particularly as Jython and JRuby start making inroads on the JVM-land  compared to the others   Clojure  even discounting some very interesting features  has a strong appeal just by being a Lisp dialect on JVM  It might limit its popularity  granted  but I expect it will have loyal community around it for a long time   Scala can compete directly with Java  and give it a run for its money on almost all aspects  It can t compete in popularity at the moment  of course  and the lack of a strong corporate backing may hinder its acceptance on corporate environments  It s also a much more dynamic language than Java  in the sense of how the language evolves  From the perspective of the language  that s a good thing  From the perspective of users who plan on having thousands of lines of code written in it  not so   As a final disclosure  I m very familiar with Scala  and only acquainted with the other two

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Obviously  the syntax are completely different  Groovy is closest to Java   but I suppose that is not what you are asking for   If you are interested in using them to script a Java application  Scala is probably not a good choice  as there is no easy way to evaluate it from Java  whereas Groovy is especially suited for that purpose

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I never had time to play with clojure  But for scala vs groovy  this is words from James Strachan - Groovy creator       Though my tip though for the long term replacement of javac is Scala    I m very impressed with it  I can honestly say if someone had shown me   the Programming in Scala book by Martin Odersky  Lex Spoon  amp  Bill   Venners back in 2003 I d probably have never created Groovy     You can read the whole story here

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Scala  Scala evolved out of a pure functional language known as Funnel and represents a clean-room implementation of almost all Java s syntax  differing only where a clear improvement could be made or where it would compromise the functional nature of the language   Such differences include singleton objects instead of static methods  and type inference   Much of this was based on Martin Odersky s prior work with the Pizza language  The OO FP integration goes far beyond mere closures and has led to the language being described as post-functional   Despite this  it s the closest to Java in many ways   Mainly due to a combination of OO support and static typing  but also due to a explicit goal in the language design that it should integrate very tightly with Java   Groovy  Groovy explicitly tackles two of Java s biggest criticisms by   being dynamically typed  which removes a lot of boilerplate and adding closures to the language    It s perhaps syntactically closest to Java  not offering some of the richer functional constructs that Clojure and Scala provide  but still offering a definite evolutionary improvement - especially for writing script-syle programs   Groovy has the strongest commercial backing of the three languages  mostly via springsource   Clojure  Clojure is a functional language in the LISP family  it s also dynamically typed   Features such as STM support give it some of the best out-of-the-box concurrency support  whereas Scala requires a 3rd-party library such as Akka to duplicate this   Syntactically  it s also the furthest of the three languages from typical Java code   I also have to disclose that I m most acquainted with Scala

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They can be differentiated with where they are coming from or which developers they re targeting mainly   Groovy is a bit like scripting version of Java  Long time Java programmers feel at home when building agile applications backed by big architectures  Groovy on Grails is  as the name suggests similar to the Rails framework  For people who don t want to bother with Java s verbosity all the time   Scala is an object oriented and functional programming language and Ruby or Python programmers may feel more closer to this one  It employs quite a lot of common good ideas found in these programming languages   Clojure is a dialect of the Lisp programming language so Lisp  Scheme or Haskell developers may feel at home while developing with this language

[scala] Scala vs. Groovy vs. Clojure

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