The Dynamic Languages Day, which is part of the JAX 08, starts with a session about Groovy:

Guillaume Laforge:
Groovy, a successful dynamic language for the JVM

• What's Groovy
• Syntax
• Groovy APIs
• What's new in Groovy 1.5
• Domain-Specific Languages
• Integration of Groovy in custom apps

Groovy is Java-like and intregrates seamless with Java; you can mix both, same strings, regex, APIs, OO, threads, security etc.

It's fully oo, Closures, Properties, Operator overloading, Multimethods, GPath, BigDecimal, etc. Lots of interesting language features missing in Java. Ideal for DSLs

Already integrated in a lot of projects, LOTS of projects, like Grails, JBoss Seam, ServiceMix, SoapUI, Turbine, Oracle, Mule, Spring, IntelliJ IDEA, Ant, Maven, ...

Used in mission-critical apps:
e. g. Mutual of Omaha, Fortune 500 US insurance company,
45,000 lines of Groovy (half business code, half test code), risk calculation engine, ideal for business rules expression
Reasons for Groovy: exact arithmetic support, perfect Java integration, closures


Groovy Syntax
Groovy is a Java superset
Valid Java code is also valid Groovy code, but using Groovy's language constructs, you get shorter, "groovier" programs

• no semicolons necessary,
• public is default,
• {$varName} in String literals will be replaced by variable value,
• Properties: get rid of simple getters and setters,
• def is type-unsafe general type,
• var.name = X instead of var.setName(X),
• println instead of System.out.println,
• no types necessary for arguments,
• code out-side of classes
• Operator overloading
• new properties on numbers like 10.dollars or 30.seconds

Literals for lists, maps, ranges, regexes,
strings

Multiline strings: """
first line of string

last line of string """

Gstrings: println "My name is $(name)"


Closures

especially useful with each, eachLine,
findAll iterators; "it" means current value



Groovy APIs

Simplified APIs for common tasks, like

• mocking, stubbing support,
• XML parsing,
• SQL support with exception & resource handling,
• COM scripting on Windows,
• consuming/providing Web services

Swing Builder

easy, concise way to generate UI, e.
g. frame with panel with labels, text fields and buttons, even with listeners

using closures the code is really short


Automating Office applications

ActiveXProxy is a wrapper for COM objects

because Groovy is a dynamic language
(double dispatch), you can simply call the usual methods on your COM objects
(like in VB)


Domain-Specific Languages

Why create a DSL?

• more expressive language
• common metaphore
• domain experts can help writing the business rules
• seperate business code and logic from technical/application code

New in Groovy 1.5

Java 5 Features, like Annotations, generics,
...


Groovy switch statement works on a lot
more things, like lists, enums, etc.


ExpandoMetaClass from Grails: expand
existing classes


IDE support

• IntelliJ IDEA plugin
• Eclipse plugin (not so good by now)
• Oracle is working on JDeveloper plugin

Integrating Groovy in your apps

• Java 6's scripting API (JSR-223)
• Drop engine and libraries in your class path and create engine
• GroovyShell
• GroovyClassLoader: most powerful integration mechanism
• Spring 2 Groovy integration

http://groovy.codehaus.org