Groovy's performance vs. Java

You knew the performance question was coming, right? How does Groovy's performance measure against Java's? I've read and heard several times that Groovy is nowhere near Java as far as performance. Is Groovy's performance improving with age?

On a related note, I've heard that "you can always write Java if Groovy doesn't perform well enough for you." While this is true, I don't like it. If Groovy doesn't perform well, its performance should be improved. I don't think the solution should be for me to go write Java. There's a reason I chose Groovy to solve the problem, so why should I have to switch to Java (even if only for a few lines of code)?

Are there people working to improve Groovy's performance?

Performance is one of the major issues that is in the minds of Groovy committers. I have spoken to them and they are very well aware of it and certainly it is not something being ignored. Groovy 1.6 is expected to have some improvements. I am sure as Groovy matures, performance will be addressed further as well.

Having said that there is nothing wrong with using Java where is is better and using Groovy where it shines. You have that choice and there is no reason not to take advantage. I have never seen a solution that solves all my problems all the time.

Thanks for the quick response.

I have never seen a solution that solves all my problems all the time.

I haven't either, and I don't suppose that'll ever happen.

It should be noted that while groovy is generally slower because it's interpreted, some things in groovy are faster, for example there's no type checking so that saves some overhead.

--Mark

My first impression was that Groovy interpreted code as well. That is not true. Groovy code is not interpreted. Groovy code is always compiled into bytecode before execution. Even if you don't use groovyc explicitly, when you run groovy command, it first compiles your code in memory and then runs that code.

Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
for example there's no type checking so that saves some overhead.

That is, in fact, not true, as far as I know. (It might be that we are defining "type" differently, though.)

Types are generally checked at runtime rather than compile time, but they're still checked.