
Groovy and Grails Plans Announced at SpringOne2GX - mindcrime
http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/09/groovy24-25-grails31
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vorg
> Perhaps the most significant is improved compiler performance with a new
> Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) class reader in place of using class loading
> tricks. The Groovy compiler starts by compiling scripts to a Concrete Syntax
> Tree (CST)

Rather than talking so much about AST improvements, perhaps these Groovy
developers should explain why the process for compiling to the CST still uses
the Antlr 2.x lexer/parser which hasn't been worked on since 2005, and both
Antlr 3 and Antlr 4 have long since arrived in the meantime. When they got a
Google SoC student to attempt an upgrade to Antlr 4 in 2011 and another one
last year, they both failed, and Groovy didn't get any SoC students this year
despite Scala, Clojure, and JRuby getting plenty each.

