why aren't more people using Grails?

Question

Hi,

I've been learning Groovy & Grails recently, and in terms of developer productivity it seems to be light years ahead of other Java solutions (Spring, Struts, EJB, JSF). If I search monster.ca, for either Groovy or Grails, 0 matches are returned, which suggest Grails isn't doing too well in terms of adoption.

I realise that:

• Grails is relatively new and adoption takes time
• Success of a technology depends on more than just it's technical merits (e.g. marketing $)
• Search results on monster.ca are at best a very rough proxy for global adoption. It's possible that lots of people are using it, just not in Canada, or Canadian companies that are using it simply aren't hiring at the moment

Are there other reasons why it hasn't been adopted to the extent it seems to "deserve"?

Cheers, Don

Answer 1

There are probably more people using Grails than you think. Job boards show you what are the skills people are looking for. Grails is fairly new and there are not a lot of people experienced with it out on the job market.

Grails and in particular Groovy are very close to Java. A few quick lessons in Groovy and a Java developer and quickly feel at home. You can very easily take a vanilla Java developer posting and put that person on into a position developing with grails.

I would say that you will see more Groovy/Grails postings in the future as more Java shops adopt these technologies.