A few years ago I wrote a few Groovy language scripts to help with some configuration and testing needs. I discussed these with my co-workers. But, lo and behold, for weeks they thought I was saying that the scripts were Groovy, as in cool, not Groovy as in the JVM based dynamic language. They never heard of Groovy. We had a big laugh.
This situation made me think again that developers have differing interests in their field. No offense, but a certain percentage just go to work and do what is required and punch out at the end of the day. It is Java today, but it may as well be COBOL, there is always opportunity to copy and paste and do the minimum to “solve” the current business stakeholder requirements.
I’m sure this is only true for some corporate IT environments which have a top down rigid structure and legacy applications. Introducing change into the software process and tools is difficult. Stability and safety is paramount. Thus, the worker who toes the line and is not disruptive is an asset. Sure, there is talk of change and new techniques, but at the end of the day: “no, we can’t use that, we have this.” The new web businesses and open-source projects are different, of course.
BTW, Groovy is now slowly being used in my company. But, not sure many have heard of it yet.
