Any experience with groovy as core testing language?

Question

Hey guys,

I think I am not the only one who is gonna ask this question next time. After some experience with RoR I am impressed with the power of dynamic languages. Lots of projects are still forced for different reasons to use a java technology stack though. Since testing is an important part of any project I would like to hear your experience about building an enterprise project with groovy as main testing language and NOT in production code. It think this is a perfect scenario to start with this language. How was your experience for this constellation, specially regarding following points:

1. Integration in Eclipse: calling java apis, still with auto complete functions possible?
2. Stability any Performance of groovy, if you have a typical java stack (Spring, OR-Mapper)
3. Integration of the groovy tests in the ant build and continuous integration server
4. Adaptability by a java team of 4 developers

Thanks a lot!

Denis.

Answer 1

1. Integration in Eclipse: minimal, but effort is underway by SpringSource, with expected good results in a couple of months;
2. Groovy is stable in my opinion, but the performance is not stellar. But then again unit testing does not need to be ultra-fast, just fast;
3. Integration: it's done for both maven and ant;

Answer 2

Integration into Eclipse is functional. It is not the best but it is continually improving. It is certainly good enough for unit tests.

Stability is fine. Built on the JVM I have not had any stability issues with Groovy. As for performance it is a bit slower than pure Java but you can mix Java code in if that is a huge problem. Honestly, I don't think performance should be a concern for a testing language. Groovy performance is good enough for most applications.

Integration into unit tests is pretty easy. Groovy compiles to Java classes. As long as your groovy libraries are on the classpath, JUnit can execute your groovy tests. I use groovy for automated tests mixed in with some older Java only unit tests. We run it nightly in CruiseControl in a Maven project.

Groovy is pretty easy to learn. It is similar enough to Java that your 4 developers who probably know Java should have no trouble picking it up.