Since 2007 Apache Groovy has been a powerful, optionally typed and dynamic language that has static-typing and static compilation capabilities, for the Java platform which aimed at improving the developer productivity thanks to a concise, familiar and easy to learn syntax. It integrates smoothly with any Java program, and immediately delivers to your application using powerful features, including scripting capabilities, Domain-Specific Language authoring, runtime & compile-time meta-programming and functional programming.
It may not seem much at first, but even a few glimpses of this magnificent language can inspire you to try it out and take a test drive for yourself, as in recent years we see that Groovy been climbing up to the top.
So for this week If you wanting to learn more about Groovy, this round up of the best tools, frameworks and resources for Groovy is for you.
1. Learn Groovy in Y Minutes
The Learn X in Y minutes series has been incredibly successful over the years, and it’s basically a way of introducing yourself to the language without encountering any real world barriers. It’s a great way to explore the syntax and the general language functionality, and is a good starting place before diving into more in-depth material such as tutorials and books.
2. Idea
Intellij Idea is an excellent IDE for Groovy which offers outstanding framework-specific coding assistance and productivity-boosting features for Java EE,Spring, GWT, Grails, Play and other frameworks, along with deployment tools for most application servers. ntelliJ IDEA includes an amazing set of tools which work out-of-the-box: support for Maven, Gradle and STS; integration with Git, SVN, Mercurial; built-in Database Tools; and many more.
3. Grain
Grain is a lightweight but yet a powerful static website generator for Groovy which purpose is to make demanding site implementation intuitive and enjoyable. This framework is equally well-suited for any static website, whether it is a complex company site or a neat blog. The framework applies simple website building concepts and allows to develop rapidly by making and seeing changes on the fly.
4. Groovy SQL
Groovy SQL is a serious of tutorial which will be a great place to start to get yourself up to speed about the correlation between SQL and Groovy and how can both work together beautifully. It’s an insightful and knowledge packed tutorial, enjoy it.
5. Groovy/Grails Tool Suite
The Groovy/Grails Tool Suite is a complete Eclipse-based development environment optimised for developing, debugging and executing Groovy and Grails applications. A new perspective, new views and wizards ensure an intuitive and familiar Eclipse experience when working with the Groovy language and Grails framework. It provides support for the latest versions of Groovy and Grails, and comes on top of the latest Eclipse releases.
6. Glide
Glide puts together both Google’s Java App Engine, the power of Groovy, as well as the integration of Gaelyk framework to bring about a framework that lets you develop apps in lightening fast speed! You have to check it out for yourself to really understand the powerful features of Glide.
7. Groovy Web Console
The Groovy Web Console is a website for sharing and executing Groovy programming snippets of code! You can play around with your own scripts, or you can load scripts from previously executed scripts and see what other developers are making. Great to find some last moment inspiration.
8. Groovy Playground
Groovy Playground is an excellent coding playground which allow you to play around with your Groovy cody (presumably with what you learned in previous resource) and see how it all comes together in the end.
9. Groovy Koans Project
The Groovy Koans project is a collection of small exercises in the form of unit tests, designed to get Java developers up to speed on Groovy features and common idioms. It starts by teaching you basic Groovy building blocks, and gradually builds your knowledge towards metaprogramming, slurpers, and all the goodness Groovy has to offer.
10. Gaelyk
Gaelyk create lightweight web applications that you can host on the Google’s Java App Engine. As a tons of Groovy developers already use Gaelyk as it takes the existing features of the language and provides a more concise approach towards fast and efficient development. You can browse the homepage of the Gaelyk web framework for Groovy and explore the apps that people have created already to get a better idea of the capabilities of this particular Groovy framework.
