Customer Reviews

Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java (Pragmatic Programmers)

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I absolutely love this book. I have no idea how it would read for a newbie, but as a developer well-versed in Java and very familiar with Groovy, this is an incredibly empowering book.

I own and have studied, and liked, 4 other Groovy books, but since I am not using it full-time yet, I tend to forget just the stuff I would like to have at my fingertips just when I need it. Reading the other books is kind of like looking at a new car in the showroom: you see the features, but not much more. This book is like taking a test drive on a race course: you immediately experience the power of using it like it should be used.

The subtitle for this book could be: How to do incredibly useful things *immediately* with Groovy. As the author says in chapter 6, he's not a sys admin, but Groovy makes it almost enjoyable to do all the sys tasks a developer has to handle all the time.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Will it teach you Groovy from the beginning, will it teach you the internals? I don't know, all I do know is that each page tells you how to do something you need to do, how to do it quickly and easily, and it tells you in a way that clarifies a lot of what I have read in other books.

This is one of the most useful books I have ever read since K&R.

I got this book after hearing the author speak at JavaOne. His talk covers the content of the first chapter along with a few other items, but I didn't mind. It was quite helpful to read through the points and examples he made and try them out at my own pace.

The book is driven by a series of insights rather than complete, formal coverage. I found this approach very useful to getting started and experimenting. The writing is clear, light-hearted, and relaxed, especially in the beginning.

Towards the end of the book, the explanations wane a bit. The sample code is more often given without an introduction, beyond the section header. I was less sure what was going on in some of these cases, as I had gotten accustomed to picking things up very quickly in the beginning. The explanations that followed these code bits were good enough, but I missed that sense of the author's energy from beginning to end of each section.

I don't understand at all why it's called Groovy Recipes. There aren't any. The examples illustrate very well the power of this tool, but I didn't see anything that amounts to, say, the Groovy way to mine a web page, create an IM interface, read mail, etc. If you are looking for code you can apply immediately to some series of problems, this isn't the one.

(Disclaimer: I know Scott Davis, but don't hold that against him)
Groovy Recipes does what the title says: gives you recipes for how to get stuff done in Groovy. But that's only part of the value of this book. It also teaches how to become an idiomatic Groovy developer. And that's incredibly important. The classic book on C, the K&R book The C Programming Language, did 2 things for C. First and foremost, it taught developers about the c programming language. But the second more subtle thing it did was to teach developers how to be idiomatic C programmers. I can remember reading the book and marveling at the conciseness of the code, which had as much to do with the way the language was used as the language itself.
Anytime you learn a new language, you have 2 battles: first, learn the syntax (which is the easiest part -- it's just details of how familiar concepts are expressed in the new syntax). The second battle is the more important one: how to become an idiomatic programmer in that language. Developers new to a language tend to write new code just like code from their former language, using new syntax. Only when they've had time to steep in the better, more elegant ways of expressing yourself in a new language do they truly become proficient. That's what Groovy Recipes does for Groovy developers. It shows not just the syntax, but how to idiomatically use that syntax to become proficient with Groovy. Groovy is a much more powerful language than Java. While you can take a Java source file and rename it with a groovy extension and have it still work, you're writing Groovy code like a Java developer. After you've seen and used Groovy for a while, you start writing code like a Groovy developer. The Groovy Recipes book is two things: recipes for using Groovy to solve problems. But, more importantly, it teaches idiomatic Groovy programming, which is the long-term benefit of the book. It is an excellent book, well written and highly informative.

For me, the best part of the whole book was Chapter 3: "New to Groovy". The "New to Groovy" chapter essential lists out all the Groovy answers to "why Java can be painful and how Groovy soothes". I liked the very short "here's how you do X in Groovy" format - and any Java developer immediately can see the benefits to adding Groovy to their development arsenal.

However, the part of the book that helped (more accurately, is helping) me get Groovy integrated into my projects at work is the information about "Java and Groovy Integration". The projects build on existing internal and external Java APIs; so the information here was very helpful in proving Groovy will not interfere with the current investment in Java.

This is definately put together as a reference book; flipping through the chapters and reading what looks interesting hasn't disappointed me yet.

Disclosure: I was a technical reviewer of this book.

Scott's approach to the book is very agile, in that, after a brief discussion of the Groovy language, it essentially answers lots of very specific questions regarding "How to..." in Groovy. Each section starts with a code snippet that is designed to be copied directly into your code, letting you quickly solve a problem (e.g. parsing XMl documents) and move on. The detail in these examples ensures that this book will remain useful for some time to come. Along with the toolset you get, these examples really demonstrate the power of the Groovy language and provide an excellent way to learn the language.

While perhaps not as all encompassing a primer on Groovy as GINA, Scott does a good job, in the early part of the book, presenting most of the language's features in sufficient depth that I am comfortable suggesting this as your first book on Groovy. And once the basics are covered, Scott goes on to present some excellent examples of how to use idiomatic Groovy to solve common programming problems, including file I/O, XML processing, Web Services, basic metaprogramming, and a nice introduction to Grails, the web framework built with Groovy. After the Grails intro, Scott presents some nice examples of how to use Grails in a similar manner to his treatment of Groovy.

Highly recommended!

Scott has clearly assembled *the* go-to guide for turning Groovy into every Java developer's perfect utility knife. Whether you need to quickly parse an Atom feed, serve up an Excel spreadsheet from your Grails app, or create a tarball on the fly, this book will show you how. In true Groovy style, Scott does away with all unnecessary ceremony and gets right down to business. In almost every section, the very first thing you see is code - the recipe for solving to the problem at hand - and if you want to stick around for the clear and informative explanation, well, that's strictly optional.

Learning the syntax of a language is one thing; learning how to use it productively is something else entirely. While nothing can replace Dierk Koenig et al's Groovy in Action, that book is only the first step to becoming a productive Groovy developer. Scott Davis here provides short, practical examples of how to incorporate Groovy into your everyday Java work in a wide variety of ways.

Like most recipes books, the book works best for me as a reference. Whenever I'm working on a Groovy application and need to know the "grooviest" way to accomplish a particular task, I can quickly find a sample here and use it.

One of the best features of Groovy is that it provides a very easy learning curve for Java developers. The samples in this book show you how to gradually add Groovy snippets to existing Java systems, as well as how to build those systems in a Groovy fashion from the start. When you add in Scott's customary easy-going style, the result is a book that I expect to be a major seller in the community for years to come.

Groovy Recipes is an excellent introductory book into Groovy programming. The first few chapters give clear instructions for learning how to use Groovy. The remaining chapters give clear instructions for using some of Groovy's cool features: using Groovy with Java, Grails programming, metaprogramming, working with XML, File manipulation, and web services).
Much akin to the fun and energetic manner that Davis speaks in his presentations he writes Groovy Recipes.
If you haven't heard him speak(and even if you have), do a quick Google Video search for Scott Davis Groovy and you'll find a presentation or two of his. I recommend them.
One technique that I found especially useful is how Davis compared performing a simple task in the Java world, and then showed how it could be done in the Groovy world. Of course, it's easier in the groovy world for all the examples. It's nice to see areas where we can take advantage of Groovy's strengths.
Groovy Recipes has enough content to sit on an experienced Groovy developer's book shelf, but the more novice Groovy people will find more value in Groovy Recipes.

'Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java' is a typical Pragmatic release in that it is written well, free of bells and whistles, and jam full of relevant and useful information. There is 250+ pages of information here on how to use and implement Groovy, the wonderful Java addition that makes programming easier and more exciting for any and all developers!

Content is spread over 12 chapters:

01. Intro
02. Getting Started
03. New to Groovy
04. Java + Groovy
05. Command Line Groovy
06. File Tricks
07. XML Parsing
08. Writing XML
09. Web Services
10. Metaprogramming
11. Grails
12. Grails + Web Services

As can be seen by the TOC, this is a book for programmers of today living in a networked world. The focus is on writing efficient, good code that is fast and useful. This book is extremely beneficial to any and all Groovy developers that want to learn better and faster this wonderful technology.

***** RECOMMENDED

For those of you who haven't heard of Groovy, Groovy is a scripting language that is built on top of Java. Since it is written on top of Java, a Java developer can pick up pick Groovy in a snap.

About a year ago, I was able to hear Scott Davis give an incredible talk on Groovy. When I found out that he was coming out with a book on Groovy, I couldn't wait to read it. His book covers the Groovy language basics in a clear and concise manner with plenty of examples that you can use in your own code to solve a problem. In addition to providing every day solutions to common problems, this book has one of the best explanations I have seen of how Groovy handles private variables. After covering the basics, his book includes loads of useful "Groovy Recipes" such as how to compile your Java Classes with Groovy classes, how to execute commands easily on the command line, other useful file tricks, and too many other useful recipes to mention. I learned a great deal of what I can do with Groovy by reading this book.

This book is a must have for any Groovy developer.