Application Architect for ThoughtWorks, Neal Ford comments on the homebrew (or what he calls craptaculous) framework and what he thinks of Grails as it approaches 1.0:

Which suggests a clear new front runner in the Java world: Grails. Because it is based on Groovy, not Java, the perception is that it is the only game in town. That will help drive the adaptation of Groovy like wildfire. In fact, I think that Grails is the engine driving the interest in Groovy. New languages are cool and all, but until you have something to do with them, they don’t catch on (look at what happened with Java when servlets came along).

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention that Rails now runs on the JVM via JRuby. However, I think this is perceived by many in the Java world as a bigger transition than Groovy and Grails. Ruby is a completely different language, with different idioms. To hard-core Java-ists, Groovy is practically Java, with most of the stinky parts removed. Once Grails becomes 1.0 and beyond, it may be salvation from the home-grown Craptaculous framework that Java developers are still using.

We have seen adoption of the Grails framework increase as more and more developers push for it from the “bottom up”. We are excited for 2008 as we believe you will be hearing much more about this Java-flavored web-framework.

Yes, we have moved into new offices in Minneapolis. North East Minneapolis at 4th Street NE and Hennepin to be exact. We have a suite on the top floor of a three story building. The space has high ceilings, ample windows, and wood floors. We are very excited and have been furnishing it and planning for the future.

It seems efficient, inspiring office configurations are very hard to come by. We have read many online accounts of what many people hate and what some people love, taking special note of those in our industry: software development.

We have gravitated toward the “open floor plan” for a couple reasons. We enjoy collaborating and find that by breaking down walls (in this case literally) the speed and ease of communication is greatly improved. The benefits of knowing virtually everything that is going on, and thus, not needing to track tasks and activities, outweighs the inevitable distraction and productivity loss that can happen in this type of layout.

FeedBurner founder Dick Costolo had this to say last fall about the topic of open offices:

1. Speed of communication begets speed of execution.
2. Friction begets friction, transparency begets transparency.
3. Motivation.

The first two are pretty self-explanatory. Motivation is a by-product of people not wanting to screw around when they are out in the open and expected to be productive.

While open floor plans are great and collaboration is essential, we still understand that there are occasions when concentration is required and interruptions would come at too large a cost. Like Joel Spolsky of Fogbugz Software we believe the that the right environment “can improve programmer productivity” and that it should be nice if we are spending a large part of our days there. In Joel’s words “It better be nice.”

Here is a loose set of requirements we are going by when building out and furnishing our new offices:

• Ample table space so that people can sit 2-4 at a table when needed.
• Individual “work carrels” for when you just need to crank.
• Conference room and break room areas where phone calls and meetings can be held in greater privacy and quiet.
• To restate our thought from above, the office should be cool. It should be someplace that we want to invite people to visit.
• We want to share the space with colleagues who are seeking similar space. This will allow us to collaborate with more people and make use of the space until the day (if that comes) we grow into it fully.
• The ability change up any of the above requirements and areas as our needs change.

With these requirements in mind (and a couple other constraints, namely budget and time) we have come up with a plan (shown at left) that allows our team to work in the way we want and allows us to reconfigure should that change.

We have a group of tables (and several whiteboards) in the lightest and most enjoyable place to work. This is where most of the magic will happen. There there are some smaller tables divided by bookcases and corrugated plastic to provide privacy for solo working conditions. There are plans for a conference room that can seat 8 around a table (potentially too big?) and house a projector and whiteboards.

Outside the conference room there are several spaces to for more casual seating, either in chairs facing another whiteboard or in front of a flat-panel screen on the couch. Lastly, there is the break room/alternate meeting area with several tables a fridge and a sink. All told, it is a pretty simple (and relatively inexpensive) arrangement that serves our needs well.

We’ll be planning a small open house of sorts soon. We’ll be sure to post about it when we get that rolling.

You can view a few more office photos in the Refactr Flickr group. More photos will be posted as we go so check back and/or join the Flickr group.