&gt; Groovy code looks identical to native Java in most respects<p>Maybe your definition of &quot;most respects&quot; doesn&#x27;t include the Gradle DSL or Java 8 lambdas.<p>Nowadays I use Clojure for those quick&#x27;n&#x27;dirties testing Java code. A well-placed macro eliminates plenty of boiler-plate specific to the test at hand.