Are there any Java Web Frameworks that are very similar to Grails but use pure Java instead of Groovy?
I really like the look of Grails, but at this moment want to focus solely on improving my Java skills, so do not want to use Groovy.
I have looked at Spring MVC and Play Framework but I only plan to develop quite simple personal applications, which is why Grails appealed to me as these seem quite heavyweight.
Play, Spring Roo and Spring Boot are the closest Java frameworks I know of. I don't like Spring Roo's code-generation approach, don't know much about Play, so my personal preference would be Spring Boot. It seems to be under very active development at the moment and you can use some of the nicest parts of Grails in a Spring Boot app, e.g. GSP, GORM.