Here are few reasons for popularity of Groovy
Familiar OOP language syntax.
Extensive stock of various Java libraries
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Increased expressivity (type less to do more)
Dynamic typing (lets you code more quickly, at least initially)
Closures
Native associative array/key-value mapping support (you can create an associative
array literal)
String interpolation (cleaner creation of strings displaying values)
Regex's being first class citizens
