Groovy 1.0

Groovy project is an agile dynamic language for the Java 2 Platform that has many of the features that people like so much in languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk, making them available to Java developers using a Java-like syntax.
Groovy is designed to help you get things done on the Java 2 Platform in a quick, concise and fun way — Groovy brings the power of a scripting language directly into the Java 2 Platform. For example:
- Shell scripting using Groovy allows the full power of the Java Platform to be brought to bear to the task at hand.
- Groovy can be used (and indeed is already being used) as a replacement for Java for small and medium sized applications to execute on the Java 2 Platform.
- Groovy can be used as an embedded language for dynamic business rules or extension points utilizing the agility of Groovy and saving the cost of redeploying applications for each change of rule (especially when the rules are stored in a database).
- Groovy makes writing test cases for unit tests very easy.
Main features:
- Closure support
- Native syntax for Lists and Maps
- Groovy Markup
- Groovy Path expression language
- Groovlets for implementing Servlets easily in simple Groovy scripts
- Groovy SQL for making SQL more Groovy
- Groovy Beans for simpler syntax for working with beans
- Groovy Template Engines which are pluggable, simple to use, integrate GPath and compile to bytecode
- Ant Scripting
- Regex syntax for neater scripting with regular expressions
- Operator Overloading to simplify working with datatypes Collections and Maps
- Polymorphic iteration and autoboxing
- Compiles straight to Java bytecode
- Works cleanly with all existing Java objects and libraries