Apache Groovy's string syntax is deficient, not great. It doesn't have the docstrings syntax that Python, Ruby, and Perl all use.
An early beta version of Groovy 1.0 had it (thanks to a Sam Pullara), but it was later yanked out. Groovy's self-styled Project Manager at the time said he only wanted syntax in Groovy that would cause the Java syntax highlight rules in Eclipse and Netbeans to highlight Groovy code similar to Java, so if a manager was walking around the programming area, the screens would look like the programmers were using Java.
And that's how Groovy got its deficient string syntax.
An early beta version of Groovy 1.0 had it (thanks to a Sam Pullara), but it was later yanked out. Groovy's self-styled Project Manager at the time said he only wanted syntax in Groovy that would cause the Java syntax highlight rules in Eclipse and Netbeans to highlight Groovy code similar to Java, so if a manager was walking around the programming area, the screens would look like the programmers were using Java.
And that's how Groovy got its deficient string syntax.