Beginning Groovy and Grails: From Novice to Professional [Paperback]

Christopher M. Judd (Author), Joseph Faisal Nusairat (Author), James Shingler (Author), Graeme Rocher (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2008 | ISBN-10: 1430210451 | ISBN-13: 978-1430210450 | Edition: 1st

Web frameworks are playing a major role in the creation of today's most compelling web applications, because they automate many of the tedious tasks, allowing developers to instead focus on providing users with creative and powerful features. Java developers have been particularly fortunate in this area, having been able to take advantage of Grails, an open source framework that supercharges productivity when building Java–driven web sites. Grails is based on Groovy, which is a very popular and growing dynamic scripting language for Java developers and was inspired by Python, Ruby, and Smalltalk.

Beginning Groovy and Grails is the first introductory book on the Groovy language and its primary web framework, Grails.

This book gets you started with Groovy and Grails and culminates in the example and possible application of some real–world projects. You follow along with the development of each project, implementing and running each application while learning new features along the way.

What you’ll learn

• Understand the fundamentals of the open source, dynamic Groovy scripting language and the Grails web framework.
• Capitalize upon Grails’ well–defined framework architecture to build web applications faster than ever before.
• Improve your web application with cutting–edge interface enhancements using Ajax.
• Use Grails’ object–relational mapping solution, GORM, to manage your data store more effectively than ever before.
• Take advantage of Groovy to create reporting services, implement batch processing, and create alternative client interfaces.
• Deploy and upgrade your Grails–driven applications with expertise and ease.
• Discover an alternative client in Groovy as well.

Who this book is for

Java and web developers looking to learn and embrace the power and flexibility offered by the Grails framework and Groovy scripting language.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jim Shingler is a VP of Application Development for J. P. Morgan Chase. The focus of his career has been using cutting-edge technology to develop IT solutions for the banking, insurance, financial services, and manufacturing industries. He has 16 years of large-scale Java experience and significant experience in distributed and relational technologies.

Joseph Faisal Nusairat, author of "Beginning JBoss Seam" and co-author "Beginning Groovy & Grails", is a software developer who has been developing web based applications in the Columbus and Phoenix area since 1997, primarily focused on Java / Groovy development. His career has taken him into a variety of Fortune 500 industries including military applications, data centers, banking, internet security, pharmaceuticals, and insurance. Joseph is a graduate of Ohio University with dual degrees in Computer Science and Microbiology with a minor in Chemistry. Currently, Joseph works as the Groovy Sage at Integrallis Software (www.integrallis.com). In his off-hours he enjoys watching bodybuilding and Broadway musicals, but not at the same time. 

Christopher Judd is president and primary consultant for Judd Solutions, LLC. He is an international speaker, open source evangelist, leader of the Central Ohio Java Users Group, and coauthor of Enterprise Java Development on a Budget (Apress, 2003). He has spent 12 years architecting and developing software for Fortune 500 companies in various industries, including insurance, retail, government, manufacturing, and transportation. His focus is consulting, mentoring, and training with Java, Java EE, Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), mobile technologies, and related technologies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1st edition (June 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430210451
• ISBN-13: 978-1430210450
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #560,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joseph Faisal Nusairat is a software developer who has been working full-time in the Columbus, Ohio, area since 1998, primarily focused on Java development. His career has taken him into a variety of Fortune 500 industries, including military applications, data centers, banking, Internet security, pharmaceuticals, and insurance. Throughout this experience, he has worked on all varieties of application development'from design to architecture to development. Joseph, like most Java developers, is particularly fond of open source projects and tries to use as much open source software as possible when working with clients.
Joseph is a graduate of Ohio University with dual degrees in Computer Science and Microbiology and a minor in Chemistry. While at Ohio University, Joseph also dabbled in student politics and was a research assistant in the virology labs.

Currently, Joseph works as a senior partner at Integrallis Software (www.integrallis.com). In his off-hours he enjoys watching bodybuilding and Broadway musicals, specifically anything with Lauren Molina in them.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beginning?? Says Who? August 17, 2008

By Scott Davis

Format:Paperback

Let me start by saying "Beginning Groovy and Grails" is the book that the Grails community has been clamoring for. Two very good books kicked off the Grails revolution ("Definitive Guide to Grails" and "Getting Started with Grails"), but both predate the 1.x version of Grails by many dot-versions and many years (as of the time of this review, August 2008). BGG will certainly have worthy competition on the bookshelf before long, but right now it is the book that we all have been waiting for. Luckily, it easily lives up to the heightened expectations.

After reading BGG cover to cover, it seems to break naturally into three sections: Core Groovy, Core Grails, and Ancillary Grails. This division is mine, not the authors; the table of contents lists 13 chapters with no explicit section breaks. (Whether the three sections correspond to the three authors is an interesting question -- the tone of voice and writing style is consistent across the entire book.)

The first three chapters do an admirable job of covering the Groovy language from the basics to advanced topics. Groovy offers lots of syntactic sugar that might initially catch a Java programmer off-guard. These features, once you've seen them, dramatically reduce the lines of code you have to write. But more than that, there are some fundamentally new features in Groovy that don't have an easy match in Java. Builders, Expandos, metaprogramming, and DSLs are all discussed in these early chapters. While you don't have to use these features yourself to be successful in Grails, it certainly helps the reader understand how much of the Grails "magic" occurs under the covers.

The next three chapters (Introduction to Grails, Building the User Interface, and Building Domains and Services) hit the Core Grails features hard. These 150 pages do a great job of walking you through the basics of getting a Grails application up and running with a minimum of effort. They also make testing feel like a natural part of the development process (which it should be!). Rather than having a single chapter dedicated to testing, each new topic organically includes testing as a way to validate that the new code does what it promises to do.

The remaining chapters (Security, Ajax, REST, Reporting, Batch Processing, Deploying, and Alternative Clients) make up close to half the book. Each chapter covers the subject material as advertised, including working sample code. Not every Grails application will use every feature discussed here, but I still found a clever snippet of code here or a nice explanation of a general concept that rewarded me for reading every chapter.

Overall, "Beginning Groovy and Grails" delivers on its title -- if you are new to either (or both) technologies, you will be up and running before you know it. But don't be fooled by the title; even though it has "Beginning" in it, this book doesn't shy away from the advanced topics, either. This isn't a completist volume. Rather, it is a broad survey of the Groovy and Grails ecosystem. Christopher, Joseph, and Jim covered a lot of ground in an easy, readable way. I highly recommend it.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Start to a great solution June 28, 2008

By Donald 'Donnie' Demuth

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I come from a strong Django background and when I recently inherited the role of Lead Developer I had the power to make decisions for a small start-up. There were two requirements for the product the customer needed: database independence and it must be based on a java framework. Additionally, the team would be fairly small and we would have less than 4 month to deploy. Needless to say I felt Grails would make my life livable.

This book does a wonderful job introducing you to the Grails framework. To be honest, its hard to pick up Grails based on the documentation out on the net unless you already have experience with a similar framework. I had several members on my team that failed miserably with Grails who came from a Spring/Struts background. However, those who had Rails and Django experience could hit the ground running.

If this book came out earlier, I'm sure the 'other' developers could've had less headaches. The book holds you hand and introduces you to the simplicity this technology offers. Give Grails a shot and get this book! Yes, the framework and language isn't quite mature yet and does have a number of 'gotchas.' But with its glowing community I can see it easily improve and become a very popular choice in the job market.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Get the Definitive Guide April 27, 2009

By Nick D

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

the intro to Groovy is good, but the Definitive Guide is a better book since it's written with a more recent version of Grails. In my opinion it's also a better beginning tutorial.