* Welcome Venkat Subramaniam

[David O'Meara]

This week, we're delighted to have Venkat Subramaniam helping to answer questions about the new book Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer.

The promotion starts Tuesday, April 8th 2008 and will end on Friday, April 11th 2008.

We'll be selecting four random posters in this forum to win a free copy of the book provided by the publisher, Pragmatic Bookshelf.

Please see the Book Promotion page to ensure your best chances at winning!

Posts in this welcome thread are not eligible for the drawing.

[Mark Herschberg]

Welcome Venkat, it will be nice to have a groovy expert around for a bit, as most of us here are pretty green.

--Mark

[Scott A Lynch]

Welcome Venkat! I'm mainly posting because it's not often I see a former professor of mine's name (OO @ Univ. of Houston) here on Java Ranch.

[Jyoti Patil]

Groovy brings the best of both worlds: a flexible, highly productive, agile, dynamic language that runs on the rich framework of the Java Platform.
Groovy is one of a new breed of dynamic languages that run on the Java platform. You can use these new languages on the JVM and intermix them with your existing Java code. You can leverage your Java investments while benefiting from advanced features including true Closures, Meta Programming, the ability to create internal DSLs, and a higher level of abstraction.

[Raghavan Muthu]

I join hands with the fellow ranchers in welcoming "Venkat Subramaniam" for his spending his time and expertise!

Have a great time Venkat :cheers:

[Venkat Subramaniam]

Greetings everyone. Thank you for inviting. I am excited to be here and look forward to chat with you all this week.

[vicky m]

heary welcome to venkat. I am exited to learn more about the groovy stuffs, given that we are still a novice with respect to groovy and die-hard fan of java

[Mike Farnham]

Welcome Venkat.

I enjoyed your talk @ NFJS 2008, Milwaukee.

Started using Groovy, when I got back to my office.

[Matt Williams]

Greetings Venkat.

I am curious what you feel differentiates Groovy from other dynamic languages which run in the JVM, particularly jython and JRuby?

[Jim Yingst]

Welcome, Venkat! Good to have you here.

To others posting in this thread: remember, posts in this welcome thread are not eligible for the drawing. This is not a good thread for asking questions about Groovy. Create new threads for that (or join existing threads). This thread is just for welcoming Venkat.

[Raghavan Muthu]

That's a good point Jim and said at the right time!

[Muhammad Saifuddin]

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Welcome to Javaranch,

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[Jyoti Patil]

Welcome Venkat,
It's good to see your post.you has trained and mentored more than 3,000 software developers. so now we got opportunity to learn from you.

[charulata aggarwal]

good to have a book tht takes you to the actual purpose of the language and aids in problem solving.

[deepthi kaja]

Welcome Venkat!

I am very exited to learn more about the groovy and happy that we got opportunity to learn more from you.

[Katrina Owen]

Venkat, how exciting to see you here at JavaRanch!

Practices of an Agile Developer is one of my favorite books - one of those books that never find their way all the way back to the bookshelf, because they are either on my desk or beside my bed. I look forward to the discussions around Groovy and your Programming Groovy book!

[Steve Yonkaitis]

Venkat,

I have almost every Groovy book published so far. I am trying to get my company to use Groovy as an excepted language for scripting and small to medium size projects. So far management has set the standard making us a Java and .Net shop only. The .Net side is allowed to use VBScript, but for us Java developers, we do not have an accepted scripting alternative. Any help would be appreciated and I know your new book would definitely help.

[Venkat Subramaniam]

Steve, one of the best ways to introduce Groovy in situations like this is in unit testing and/or for small routine tasks. Groovy's unit testing facilities are awesome. It will quickly help the team realize how to use it with Java. There is always some routine book keeping tasks we have to do on projects. The dynamic nature of Groovy will help in this area. Once you start with these, soon you will find compelling areas in your application where you can quickly build some thing and show results. Rather than suggesting the benefit, you will be able to show the benefit and help with the acceptance.

[Venkat Subramaniam]

Thank you so much for everyone's comments. Katrina, thank you for your kind words about Practices of an Agile Developer. I hope you find Programming Groovy as interesting and useful.