Before a developer throws themselves deeply into learning the ins and outs of Grails development, one has to assess its future.  Just how bright is it?

Grails 1.0 was first released in February of 2008.  In a years' time, the general interest in this web application stack has steadily grown:

The overall adoption and use of Grails, when compared to other popular frameworks like Ruby and Rails or JSF is still rather small, but it's growing, and it will continue to grow.  Here's why:

Java Developers

More people in the world know Java than any other language.  This pool of developers is used to kicking the tires on new technologies and forming their own opinions.  Grails is both accessible to these developers and provides an increase in productivity that is very much welcomed.  The Java language was once hailed as being simple to use and learn.  Over time, this has become less and less the case.  Grails, and more specifically the Groovy language, makes the concept of an easy programming language real again.  Taking the leap from Java to Groovy is a small one, easily accomplished by any competent Java developer.

Integration

Grails and Groovy are very flexible, allowing Java developers to adapt to them at their own pace.  You don't know how to write Groovy code but are interested in using Grails?  No problem.  Java code is completely acceptable within the Grails framework.  Better yet, Grails has many useful commands you can run to generate controllers, views, and domain classes.  These generated classes may be used as an effective learning tool to ease the transition.  If you wish to move an existing Java application over to the Grails framework, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that most of you existing code will run unaltered within Grails.

Business

Many businesses have heavily invested in Java and its related ecosystem.  All popular web application servers can run Grails applications without modification.  Grails applications may be deployed as a WAR and dropped right into most company's existing production environments.  This "ease of insert" makes the decision of using Grails that much easier.

Many popular Java IDEs also provide Grails and Groovy support.  IntelliJ, Netbeans, and Eclipse all provide Groovy friendly environments.  All of these factors combine to make Grails extremely business friendly.

It Delivers On Its Promise

Many web frameworks have promised to easy the pain involved with web development and increase productivity.  Grails actually delivers on this promise.  It has built upon many of the concepts which have made Ruby and Rails so popular including convention over configuration, the use of scaffolding, the embracing of the DRY principle, and a focus on keeping things straight forward and simple.  Out of the box it provides an MVC architecture, testing, and support for various development environments (development, test, production, and custom).

The Answer

So, the big question as a developer is "Should I take the time to learn this framework?".  The answer is an unequivocal YES!  It will continue to catch on in corporate environments.  It fits so well into existing ecosystems and simplifies web development to such an extent that there is no doubt it will continue to grow.  G2One's recent acquisition by SpringSource will also help to dissuade any doubts management may have as to the long term viability and support of Grails.  It has the technology, the support, and it's poised to make a real difference.

Download it now, give it a try, but put your sunglasses on.  It's future is very bright.