Next Steps

By now, an experienced programmer will have noticed that I did not introduce a range of syntax elements, including loops, switch statements, and the gamut of object-oriented programming. Don't panic—these features are all available in Groovy, and you can definitely create comprehensive software with this powerful and friendly language. However, I hope that you come away with a model for approaching Groovy development that is succinct and takes advantage of Groovy's built-in strengths and the knowledge instilled into existing Groovy and Java libraries.

Before I leave you, I'll outline some key resources and Groovy-based projects.

Resources

For those wishing to learn more about the Groovy syntax, the online documentation is a great place to start. My own book, The Groovy 2 Tutorial, seeks to provide you with a solid basis in Groovy's key language elements (and it's free to read online). No Groovy developer should be without the canonical Groovy in Action 2^nd edition[9], as it reveals the language and its wonderful level of flexibility in an engaging manner. I'd round out a Groovy bookshelf with Fergal Dearle's Groovy for Domain Specific Languages 2^nd edition, which explores how you can create mini-languages to help solve real problems.

Groovy excels at making light work of connecting systems. As I mentioned in Chapter 5  Integrating Systems, Enterprise Integration Patterns by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf is a key text in the field. The Apache Camel website provides a good basis of documentation, but it can be a little tricky to piece everything together if you're starting from scratch. Luckily, Camel in Action 2^nd edition by Claus Ibsen and Jonathan Anstey is currently being written, and the first edition is a very readable introduction into this useful integration framework.

For those considering Gradle as their new build tool, the online documentation is both comprehensive and readable and will take you a long way into Gradle before you need to look for other resources. The CodeNarc analysis tool is well worth a look when you're working with Groovy and Gradle because it guides you on good practice and possible issues in your code.

The Spock Framework has online documentation to help get you started. Java Testing with Spock by Konstantinos Kapelonis provides solid coverage of testing and Spock's feature set.

Going further

There are many Groovy-based projects out there, and you're likely to find one that helps you get the job done quickly.

It's hard to go past Grails if you are looking to build dynamic websites and web services. The recently released Grails 3 saw the framework built on Spring Boot and utilize Gradle. Grails provides a range of services that can make it easier to get a project up and running. Take a read through the documentation and you'll see that you can easily configure data storage/persistence, internationalization, security, and a range of plugins.

 Some other Groovy projects for your perusal include:

• Griffon: for writing desktop applications.
• GPars: a library for concurrent programming.
• Gaiden: for creating markdown-based documentation.

I have to admit that I haven't done any work in the mobile-application domain, but you'll find that a number of people are using Groovy in Android development. If you're interested in this area, it is worth checking out the Gradle plugin for working with Groovy & Android.

Of course, should you find a gap in the Groovy landscape, there's likely to be a Java-based project to meet your needs. Because Groovy plays so nicely with Java, you'll likely find that you can pick up a Java library or framework and extend it using Groovy.