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  5. Groovy vs Hack vs Java

Groovy vs Hack vs Java

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Java
Java
Stacks148.0K
Followers105.5K
Votes3.7K
Groovy
Groovy
Stacks7.0K
Followers780
Votes212
GitHub Stars5.4K
Forks1.9K
Hack
Hack
Stacks818
Followers169
Votes29
GitHub Stars18.5K
Forks3.1K

Groovy vs Hack vs Java: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code will outline the key differences between Groovy, Hack, and Java, providing specific points of comparison for each language.

  1. Syntax: Groovy has a more concise syntax compared to Java, allowing for shorter code with less boilerplate. Hack, on the other hand, includes more advanced type annotations and generics, enhancing type safety compared to both Groovy and Java.

  2. Performance: Java generally has better performance compared to both Groovy and Hack due to its static typing and just-in-time compilation. Groovy, being dynamically typed, can be slower in execution. Hack, while statically typed like Java, offers better performance optimizations compared to Groovy.

  3. Ecosystem: Java has a mature and extensive ecosystem with a wide range of libraries and frameworks available for developers. Groovy, being built on top of Java, can leverage these Java libraries seamlessly. Hack, as a Facebook-created language, has a smaller ecosystem but is tightly integrated with HHVM for Facebook's specific use cases.

  4. Concurrency: Java has robust support for multithreading and concurrency with features like synchronized blocks and the java.util.concurrent package. Groovy has similar concurrency support but makes it more user-friendly with its higher-level abstractions. Hack also provides concurrency support, although its focus may lean more towards asynchronous programming for web applications.

  5. Community: The Java community is one of the largest and most active in the programming world, offering extensive resources, forums, and support for developers. The Groovy community, while not as large as Java's, is known for its helpfulness and innovation, especially in the domain of DSLs and metaprogramming. Hack, being a newer language, has a smaller but growing community, primarily driven by the developer community at Facebook.

In Summary, this Markdown code delineates specific differences between Groovy, Hack, and Java, encompassing syntax, performance, ecosystem, concurrency, and community aspects for each language.

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Advice on Java, Groovy, Hack

Erik
Erik

Chief Architect at LiveTiles

May 18, 2020

Decided

C# and .Net were obvious choices for us at LiveTiles given our investment in the Microsoft ecosystem. It enabled us to harness of the .Net framework to build ASP.Net MVC, WebAPI, and Serverless applications very easily. Coupled with the high productivity of Visual Studio, it's the native tongue of Microsoft technology.

614k views614k
Comments
Nick
Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k
Comments
Ido
Ido

Mar 6, 2020

Decided

When developing a new blockchain, we as a team chose Go lang over Java and other candidates, due to Go being (a) natively suited to concurrency - there are primitives in the language itself (goroutines, channels) that really help with reasoning about concurrency (b) super fast - build time, running, testing are all much faster that Java, this gives a far superior developer experience (c) shorter and stricter than Java - code is much shorter (less verbose), and there is usually one good way to do things, and even the code formatter that is bundled with Go is very opinionated - over a short time this makes reading other people's code far smoother than having to deal with different styles.

You should be aware that Go presently (v1.13) lacks Generics.

267k views267k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Java
Java
Groovy
Groovy
Hack
Hack

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

It is a powerful multi-faceted programming language for the JVM platform. It supports a spectrum of programming styles incorporating features from dynamic languages such as optional and duck typing, but also static compilation and static type checking at levels similar to or greater than Java through its extensible static type checker. It aims to greatly increase developer productivity with many powerful features but also a concise, familiar and easy to learn syntax.

Hack provides instantaneous type checking via a local server that watches the filesystem. It typically runs in less than 200 milliseconds, making it easy to integrate into your development workflow without introducing a noticeable delay.

-
Flat learning curve; Powerful features; Smooth Java integration; Domain-Specific Languages; Vibrant and rich ecosystem; Scripting and testing glue
Fast Development; Type Checking; Built for HHVM; Type Annotations; Generics; Lambdas
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
5.4K
GitHub Stars
18.5K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
1.9K
GitHub Forks
3.1K
Stacks
148.0K
Stacks
7.0K
Stacks
818
Followers
105.5K
Followers
780
Followers
169
Votes
3.7K
Votes
212
Votes
29
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 608
    Great libraries
  • 446
    Widely used
  • 401
    Excellent tooling
  • 396
    Huge amount of documentation available
  • 334
    Large pool of developers available
Cons
  • 33
    Verbosity
  • 27
    NullpointerException
  • 17
    Nightmare to Write
  • 16
    Overcomplexity is praised in community culture
  • 12
    Boiler plate code
Pros
  • 44
    Java platform
  • 33
    Much more productive than java
  • 29
    Concise and readable
  • 28
    Very little code needed for complex tasks
  • 22
    Dynamic language
Cons
  • 3
    Groovy Code can be slower than Java Code
  • 1
    Objects cause stateful/heap mess
  • 1
    Absurd syntax
Pros
  • 6
    Open source
  • 6
    Interoperates seamlessly with php
  • 5
    Backed by facebook
  • 4
    HHVM
  • 2
    Generics
Integrations
Spring
Spring
No integrations available
HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)
HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)

What are some alternatives to Java, Groovy, Hack?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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