To those who knock groovy, just give it a try.

As a long time java user, i was very reluctant to learn groovy and it took grails for me to really tune into groovy. Now it's really hard for me to go back to java. :)

I also personally feel that static compilation is more of a marketing sop to the hard-core java crowd to help move them over to the dark side but what the hey, if it works, it's good for groovy.