Beginning Groovy, Grails and Griffon

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, Grails and Griffon is the first introductory book on the Groovy language and its primary web framework, Grails.  Griffon is also covered. While Grails is the Web framework for building Groovy Web applications, Griffon is the deskop framework for building desktop Groovy applications.  Could Groovy be the new Java?  It’s light, fast and free (open source).

This book gets you started with Groovy, Grails and Griffon, 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.
• Explore the Griffon framework for creating Groovy-based desktop applications.

Who this book is for

Java and web developers looking to learn and embrace the power and flexibility offered by the more agile, lightweight Groovy scripting language and its Grails and Griffon frameworks.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Groovy and Grails
2. Groovy Basics
3. More Advanced Groovy
4. Introduction to Grails
5. Building the User Interface
6. Building Domains and Services
7. Security in Grails
8. HTML5, Ajax and JavaScript
9. Web Services
10. Reports
11. Batch Processing
12. Deployment and Upgrading
13. Introduction to Griffon