Guys,
Long time Java and Ruby guy here. Most recently have spent much of my time with Rails, which I really enjoy...most of the time. However, I find it infuriating at times to read through some of the code of the framework itself...the magic(tm) of ruby simply makes it difficult to trace at times. To boot, none, and I mean none (including RubyMine) of the available IDEs do a great job of ruby source navigation. They're at times adequate, but a far cry of the capabilities Java IDEs give you.
Four months ago, someone posted a link to playframework.org. I glanced it over, half interested but wary of picking up and learning yet another half-assed attempt at copying Rails to the Java world (I'm looking at you, Grails). However, earlier this week, something made me think of it, and having some spare time, I downloaded it and walked through the tutorial.
I am blown away.
play! supports just about every feature I can think of that I find so appealing in Rails, but it does so in Java. The code is clean. The project seems mature. The layout of a project is almost identical to a Rails project, so it's very easy for a Rails developer like me to grok. It will generate project files for Eclipse, Netbeans, Textmate and Intellij on command. It will walk your dog and make love to your wife, while finishing up the yard work you've recently neglected. Ok, that might be a stretch, but you get the idea.
The only thing I find missing is not really a problem with play! but rather a limitation of Java...I am completely, totally addicted to Ruby's blocks. I love being able to collection.each{|one|} over lists...it just feels right.
That said, play!'s clean code and style make Java palatable again, and the speed is fast(!). It's the first time I've been excited about Java development in a long time. I'm really surprised the buzz around it has been rather quiet. I think it's a Java web development game changer.
So, sorry about the blathering, but I'm curious...are any other HN'ers using play? If so, what's your experience been so far? Have you run into any limitations that would cause you to steer others away from it? Have you deployed to production yet?
Please share your experience or thoughts on play, if you don't mind.
Thanks.
There are a few minor problems with the framework being quite immature, and I don't always think the creators have a clear roadmap of where they are going. However in a way this is good for me, because the early adopters can help drive things, but with the core team trying to keep the framework as light as possible.
Coming from a j2ee type background, running each instance as a standalone process, not inside an appserver was a little strange at first. But the process separation has turned out to be a good thing for me, just takes a little more management. But because things are structured in a REST/share nothing architecture, the ability to use a proxy with failover configuration and doing hot deploys via this is nice.
The team are very responsive with help on the google group, and bugs are fixed very quickly, you just have to be prepared to run with nightly builds to keep up to date.
One worry I do have is how the team/community will continue to handle if things do become more popular. I am worried about an influx of new developers clogging the current direct channel to the developers and feel the community will have to split into newbies/users/developers to handle things more efficiently. But they are doing a great job so far so long may it continue.