If you are a bioinformatics person considering taking up Groovy as an alternative to Python (or Perl or Ruby, etc.), you will naturally wonder how the two compare on a range of simple tasks. Luckily, there is a great set of examples over at PLEAC (Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook). Most bioinformatics Perl programmers have probably seen the Perl Cookbook by Tom Christiansen & Nathan Torkington. The aim of PLEAC is to implement all of the solutions found in the Perl Cookbook in other languages. The Groovy examples are 100% complete, so you can see how every Perl cookbook solution could be performed in Groovy. Most of the cookbook solutions have also been implemented for Python, which is a more current alternative. Go have a look!