I’ve used Rails now for close to three years, and I’ve been teaching myself Grails for a new project.

Initial Thoughts
Grails is close enough to Rails to make getting started easier, and far enough away to be confusing in some ways. I had to learn Ruby while I was learning Rails, so there was a ‘double challenge’ there. I’ve been using Groovy for 6 months now, so with Grails the learning curve is much more shallow.

Cool things about Grails
I like the idea of having the domain objects define the database, instead of the other way around. One of the things that annoys me about Rails is having to go fire up MySQL every time I can’t remember what fields are on a class.

I like the built-in java integration, and IntelliJ’s support for Grails seems very solid.

Having HSQL built-in is very nice! That’s a big win.

Frustrating things about Grails
I have run into several bugs that leave me scratching my head - strange exceptions that keep the database from being automagically updated, and I find the different ways to handle error messages confusing.

In Grails’ defense, I don’t have a book to draw from - I’m looking at online examples and the InfoQ PDF. And some of this will go away with a little more practice.

And, all things considered, those are fairly minor complaints. Mostly what I’m struggling with right now is my own ambitious vision for the project.