In the course of this book, you have seen a large portion of Groovyland. Part 1 introduced you to the Groovy language, datatypes, operators, control structures, and even the Meta-Object Protocol. Part 2 led you through the Groovy library, showing builders, templates, numerous JDK enhancements, working with databases, and XML support. Your backpack is filled with lots of valuable knowledge that waits to be brought to new horizons.

Part 3 will give you guidance on how to best apply your knowledge in your day-to-day work, where the happy paths of Groovy lead though uncharted terrain, and how to employ your tools wisely.

It starts with chapter 13, which reveals tips and tricks of the experts: how to avoid common pitfalls; making use of a snippet collection; command-line and automation support; and finally laying out the workspace such that coding, debugging, profiling, and the like work well together.

Chapter 14 elaborates on unit testing, an activity that no self-respecting professional developer can work without. With a clever mix of the Groovy wisdom you’ve already acquired and a bit of guidance through Groovy’s excellent testing support, you will be able to appreciate unit testing as another strength of Groovy.

Chapter 15 bridges the world of Java and Groovy to the Windows platform, where lots of developers do their daily work. It presents how to put Groovy’s expressiveness into action for automation of Windows controls and applications.

Finally, chapter 16 comes as a bonus for all the diligent readers who held out until the very end. You will be reimbursed with a sneak peek into Grails, the (web) application framework that leverages J2EE, Hibernate, Spring, and Groovy to allow rapid application development at industrial strength.