Kotlin is an open-source language, which was developed by JetBrains in 2012. It is a high-level, statically typed programming language that runs on Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Kotlin has both object-oriented and functional constructs. You can use it in both object-oriented and functional programming styles, or mix elements of the two. It also supports features like higher-order functions, extension functions, function types, and lambdas for mobile application development. We have outlined the major code and language differences in this Kotlin vs Groovy guide.
Groovy is an object-oriented programming language which is based on the Java platform. Groovy is also a dynamic scripting language for the Java platform. Groovy 1.0 was released in 2007. Groovy is distributed through the Apache License v 2.0. Its syntax is very similar to Java and very easy to learn. Groovy supports closures, multi-line strings, including expressions embedded in strings.
Core Differences – Kotlin Vs Groovy
Kotlin and Groovy Both provide Elvis operator but the ternary operator is missing in Kotlin.
Kotlin:
| var displayName: String? = null displayName=displayName?:”Name” |
Groovy:
| //elvis operator displayName = user.name ? user.name : ‘Anonymous’ displayName = user.name ?: ‘Anonymous’ //ternary operator result = string ? ‘Found’ : ‘Not found’ |
Kotlin is a statically typed language whereas Groovy is dynamically typed language. This means that the type of variable should be known at compile time.
Kotlin:
| var name:String = “Kotlin” Var age:Int = 10 println(name) println(age) |
Groovy:
| def age = 10 def name = ‘Groovy’ println(age) println(name) |
Google announced Kotlin as the official language for android development, whereas Groovy can be used for scripting purposes.
In Kotlin, a class can be marked as a data class, which provides standard functions and utility functions. Groovy 1.8 provided few new transformations like @ToString & @EqualsAndHashCode. These annotations can provide the same functionalities as Kotlin data class.
Kotlin:
| data class User(val name: String, val age: Int) {} var user = User(“Kotlin”, 15) println(user) |
Groovy:
| @ToString class User{ String first, last int age Collection hobbies } println new User(first:’Alex’, last:’John’, age:21, hobbies:[‘Books’, ‘Games’]) |
Kotlin’s performance is the same as Java, while Groovy is a little slower than Java or Kotlin because of Closure which is much more expensive than Kotlin lambda.
Groovy use new keyword for initializing an object while in Kotlin we can directly initialize object without the new keyword.
Kotlin:
| class User(val name: String, val age: Int) {} var user = User(“Kotlin”, 15) |
Groovy:
| class User { String name int age } user= new User(name:’Groovy’, age:11) |
Groovy syntax is more like Java while Kotlin has very different syntax.
Kotlin:
| class Server(){ override fun toString(): String { return “a server” } } |
Java:
| public class Server { @Override public String toString() { return “a server”; } } |
Groovy:
| public class Server { public String toString() { return “a server” } } |
Groovy is also a testing-oriented development language with a syntax that supports running tests in IDEs, and Java build tools like Ant or Maven.
Conclusion – Groovy vs Kotlin
Kotlin and Groovy may have differences but both are JVM languages. Both are developer-friendly languages. The syntax is not the major difference between them but their nature of compilation is very different.
They are totally interoperable which indicates that they can co-exist in the same application.