

(3) The chapters on build systems, writing your own Grails scripts, and plugin development are very informative and show the kind of real power that lives under the Grails covers.Īnd/or, the critiques both big and small, and a few other things that couldn't be helped:

By the end of Chapter 6, you'll be in a decent position to start banging away on your own apps. There are some outstanding and very clear explanations of those features, the philosophies that guided the implementations of those features, and how best to apply them in a given context. (2) Part 1 ("Introducing Grails") and Part 2 ("Core Grails") are fantastic overviews of the core "90% of your time" features in the Grails platforms.

That said, this particular learn-by-doing was a strange mix of hand-holding (e.g., "Right, OK that was obvious.") followed by cavalier glossings-over of other aspects (e.g., "Wait-what?-where did that come from?"). Nothing helps it "stick" quite like getting your hands dirty. (1) I agree that the "learn by doing" approach is the best way to go. With that out of the way, what were the good and the bad? Not knowing Java-and/or not doing much work on the band end-will slow down your understanding. But that colors the approach, and when they say "previous experience with Java web development is an advantage"-they mean it. I suppose I could have figured this out if I'd taken a look at the pedigrees of either of the authors-there's a lot of Groovy and Java there. So why the disappointment? Grails in Action wasn't really written for front-end developers. So that's what I wanted to learn about I wanted the best possible introduction to Grails for front-end engineers. When Grails got onto my radar, I knew right away that most of the work I would do was going to be in the controllers, views, and layouts. And despite my excitement about making the transition into a more full-stack role, my day-to-day would still be mostly on the front-end. But as Grails has been getting introduced into the mix for a lot of new projects, it was time to dive in. My work is mostly on the front-end, and over the past couple years I've been writing object-oriented JavaScript almost exclusively.
#Grails image tools full#
Sounds great but, a brief segue on why I didn't reap the full benefits: By building the application alongside the authors' text, you get yourself familiar with those features, their syntax, and the philosophy behind it all. The book's approach is to take you through the platform in a learn-by-doing approach, walking you through the major language features by building an application in Grails that takes advantage of all (or at least most of) its major features. Grails in Action is a fast-paced overview of the Grails platform, with an even quicker overview of the Java-based Groovy language that powers it, and some at-a-glance discussions of some other underlying frameworks and technologies (e.g., Spring, Hibernate, SiteMesh).

But as a result of those gaps, I wasn't able to reap this book's full benefits. Not to be too much of a self-apologist, but let me preface this review by indicating that my frustration (and hence my lower rating) comes largely from gaps in my own knowledge.
#Grails image tools code#
Also available is all code from the book.
#Grails image tools free#
Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. The book also covers using Grails with existing Javatechnology, like Spring, Hibernate, and EJBs. Then it walks readers through a Twitter-style social networkingapp-built in Grails, of course-where they implement high-interest featureslike mashups, AJAX/JSON, animation effects, full text search, rounded corners,and lots of visual goodness. The book starts with an overview of Grails and how it can help you get your webdev mojo back. It coversthe nuts and bolts of the core Grails components and is jam-packed withtutorials, techniques, and insights from the trenches. Grails in Action is a comprehensive look at Grails for Java developers. Developers are instantly productive, picking up all the benefits of theRuby-based Rails framework without giving up any of the power of Java. For web developers used to wrestling with Java and XML, Grails is a breath offresh air.
