Groovy is different. Get this book and learn
I feel like Groovy is like a programming language "Eintopf", it aggregates some best characteristics of a variety of programming languages. No matter which programming style you prefer - procedural, functional, object-oriented, meta-programming, static typed, dynamic typed... - Groovy has much to offer. The most beautiful thing is, you can easily combine different programming styles in one language and write most concise and self-explanatory code to solve your problem. With Groovy, you suddenly have so much mind-freedom, you have the choice of expressing your algorithms as close to the nature of the problems as possible.
There are languages having very concise syntax but the code is not easy for human to read. There are languages and APIs require more strikings on keyboard than thinking. Groovy is different. You have all kinds of syntax sugar while the code still tells a literal story in your problem domain.
The only fields I think Groovy might not be suitable are the machine-level infrastructures and image/audio/video processing. C and assembly languages are not replaceable by Groovy. In most other application fields, using Groovy can dramatically boost programmers' productivity and reduce programming errors.
I started off by simply renaming all .java files in my test packages to .groovy files. Worked. Then tried out it's closures and curry calls. For me there are a lot more to explore. Haskel fans will like Groovy. Smalltalk fans will like Groovy. Python fans will like Groovy. Lisp fans maybe too. Java folks? I for one, have already been conquered. If you program at all, by all means do yourself a favour and have a look at Groovy.
Groovy in Action is an excellent book on Groovy and programming. Get this book and get the insight, you'll be glad you do.
Groovy In Action is an awesome Groovy book and reference.
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.
I first heard about Groovy In Action (also known as GINA) during a Groovy presentation almost a year ago, the presenter was referring to Groovy In Action as one of the best references out at the time, After reading GINA, I was not disappointed. The roadmap given at the beginning of the book is a great guide to see how the book is organized out. As an added bonus, the book includes some great reference information at the end of the book. It contains Groovy Language information, a GDK API quick reference, and several great cheat sheets for items such as closures, lists, etc.
The book is full of great examples that you can use (some of the examples illustrate some of the finer points of the language).
In fact someone recently asked about where to find a complete specification of the Groovy Language. Guillaume Laforge, Groovy Program Manager and co-author of Groovy In Action, responded that the most current information can be found in Groovy In Action (source user@groovy.codehaus.org mailing list 3/16/2008).
Groovy in Action is one of the Groovy books that is a must have for anyone looking to get into Groovy Development.
awesome
This book is totally awesome. The book makes it very easy to jump around and come back to previous chapters. The book's online forum is great too. The author(s) respond very quickly. It is well worth the money. Order it now and you will be programming in Groovy very quickly.
Great Primer (if a bit dated) on a Great Language
While getting a little long in the tooth (GINA was released pre-Groovy 1.0, Groovy is now above 1.5), the material presented in the book is still very relevant and helpful. The biggest issue is that some of the newer (and cooler!) features, such as ExpandoMetaClass, of the language are not covered.
That being said, this is still a great introduction to the a language that will likely become an important player in Java shops as developers migrate existing designs to take advantage of the power the dynamic programming provides. The authors do a great job of explaining the concepts and syntax of the language, making it easy to quickly begin writing code of your own.
While books such as Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java are now available that cover the newest features in Groovy, a perusal of GINA can help to flatten the learning curve.
Fabulous book, except for the last chapter...
This book is fantastic. Very well done, easy read. It was the first tech book that I read cover-to-cover -without getting bored- in a long time. The author does a good job of explaining how Groovy works under the covers and does a great job of detailing how to make effective use of it.
The language itself is also impressive and I hope Groovy gets the attention it deserves. I hope all Java developers read this to see what they're missing in Java-land. :-)
Hindsight is 20/20, I'm sure the authors are sorry they included the last chapter on Grails as they did. But I don't fault them, as I'm sure the publisher was not uninvolved in that decision... ;-)
I'm giving it 5 stars anyway. Good work!
