Can I read this book (Grails in Action) with no prior Groovy knowledge?

[Nicole Lacoste]

Hi,

I would like to know if this book requires prior Groovy knowledge? I am a relatively seasoned Java Dev, with only the vaguest notions of Groovy. Will this book bring me up to speed on Groovy, or at least all the bits of Groovy that Grails uses? Or should I read a Groovy book before hand? And if so any suggestions? Groovy in Action seems to be the market leader.

Thanks,

Nicole

[Peter Ledbrook]

Hi Nicole,

The book mainly targets Java developers, so no, you don't need to know Groovy beforehand. Chapter 2 is a primer dedicated to Groovy that will get you up to speed with what you need to use Grails effectively. If you fall in love with Groovy and use it extensively, then it's worth getting Groovy in Action as well. It's probably worth getting even if your Groovy work is limited to Grails.

Hope that helps,

Peter

[Nicole Lacoste]

Well that settles it, if I don't win it I'm buying it!

Thanks Peter,

Nicole

[Pradeep bhatt]

Given that closures are used widely, I would disagree if you say just Java would do. Take controllers or config files closures are everywhere.

[Peter Ledbrook]

The chapter does introduce closures to a level that should be more than sufficient for most Grails work. For more advanced work, particularly with plugins, then it's worth getting a book dedicated to Groovy that covers delegates, name resolution, and other closure features.

Cheers,

Peter

[chris webster]

Try "Programming Groovy" by Venkat Subramaniam for an excellent introduction to how Groovy works (as well as some pretty clever stuff on dynamic metaprogramming). Look out especially for the sections on closures and builders, which will really help you with understanding Grails as well.

[laoying Yin]

nicole, this book is very good and I've just choose it as my first grails book, the sample is very interesting and meaningful, however you need open the grails online guide (http://grails.org/doc/latest/) as some tags' usages are not up to date.