Question

If you need to choose the language to write your integration tests, what language would you pick? (from the above, or maybe another language).

The requirements that I think the language should meet are at least the following: fast, reasonable IDE, easy to learn.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I’d say Groovy is probably the best choice.

• It offers significant advantages over Java (closures, list/map literals, very compact implementation of mocks)
• It’s very easy to learn incrementally for anyone familiar with Java (Scala is much more different, and many also consider the language inherently more difficult)
• Groovy is pretty well supported by IDE plugins by now
• The speed of the language is almost certainly not going to matter for integration tests, as the system being tested will probably contain much larger overheads (especially if a database is involved)

However, if you’re already using Scala elsewhere (especially in the system under test) and can assume youre developers to be familiar with it, Scala may be a better choice.