Foreword

When we designed the Groovy language almost 10 years ago, our main goal was to create a language that is a complement to Java, a close companion, that Java developers would be familiar with and could learn easily. The idea was to empower users to be more productive by removing the boilerplate of Java, and to simplify their programming lives by giving them compelling and straightforward APIs to work with. I’m proud to say that the Groovy team attained that goal, making Groovy the most popular alternative language for the Java platform.

Along the way, and by virtue of its nature, Groovy was adopted by Java developers in a number of ways. For example, it was introduced in Java projects for testing purposes, because the Groovy syntax is light and readable but still resembles that of Java. For interacting with XML payloads, web services, or databases, Groovy provides handy and elegant wrappers around the Java Development Kit that make those tasks a breeze. And for writing business rules in Java applications, Groovy shines, thanks to its metaprogramming capabilities and its concise and expressive grammar.

I had the pleasure and honor of meeting Ken a few years ago at a Groovy conference, and our paths have crossed several times since then. Among other topics, we talked about how Groovy is a great fit for various assignments that Java developers have to accomplish every day but that are painful with the heavier-weight Java. So when Ken told me that he envisioned writing a book on this same topic, I was excited about the idea!

What makes this book stand out of the pack of Groovy books is its focus on the tasks that Java developers must tackle every day. How can I more easily parse or emit XML or JSON documents? How can I test my Java code with a more expressive syntax? How can I talk to my database without the error-prone JDBC API? How can I build and test Java applications more efficiently? In this book, Ken answers all of these questions and shows you a Groovy solution for each of those chores.

Guillaume Laforge
GROOVY PROJECT MANAGER