Groovy: Greasing the Wheels of Java

Scott Davis

In this workshop, we take a very pragmatic "prove it in code" approach to learning Groovy. Since the syntax is almost identical to Java, we can dive right in, learning the "syntactic sugar" as we solve real world problems. You'll learn how easy it is to install Groovy and get started working with it. You'll tackle file I/O, reading and creating text files. You'll create and parse XML. You'll interact with databases. You'll create Groovlets (think Servlets that get compiled on-the-fly). And finally, you'll explore web services. Language features like duck-typing, closures, and meta-programming make writing Java fun again. Because Groovy extends Java instead of replacing it, you can leverage 100% of your existing code. It offers full bidirectional integration with Java. You'll see examples of calling Java from Groovy and Groovy from Java. Groovy can be as "enterprisey" as you'd like -- compiled down to bytecode, JAR'ed up, and included along with the rest of the Java libraries in your project. Or it can be a light scripting language, compiled on the fly, replacing shell scripts and batch files with a familiar Java syntax.