Saturday, February 28, 2009

First NoFluffJustStuff of the year

It's finally here. The first NFJS of 2009! I'm sitting in Scott Davis' "Dim Sum Grails" session right now. Yesterday Scott had three brand new Groovy talks. They were very good. He's moving beyond the "what is Groovy" and into some really cool stuff. All, of course, in his award winning style!

There are also new sessions from Neal Ford, David Geary, Ken Sipe, Venkat Subramaniam, Mark Richards, Stuart Halloway and Brain Goetz. Since I haven't mastered the art of being in two places at once I will pretty much be in the Scott Davis track and then the Brian Goetz track.

I'll try to post more later. For now back to the dim sum!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

There's still time: Vote for Groovy by Feb. 14

The Linux Journal's Readers Choice Award website is still open. There's still time to cast your vote for Groovy as favorite scripting languge or favorite programming language (or, of course, BOTH).

You can cast your vote here: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/readers-choice-awards/

Once on the site you'll notice that Groovy isn't even listed as an option. At first I was a bit miffed about that, but then I realized that they probably just did that to be fair. After all, as we've seen from polls recently at places like the Planetarium, MyEclipse and the Devoxx Whiteboards, when Groovy or Grails are listed they blow everything else away!

Since it's not on the list, Groovy probably won't lead the pack by double digits, but there's no reason it can't still win. Just choose other and write in Groovy. But you better hurry, there's only a couple days left! The polling closes after February 14th, 2009.

And while you're there, scroll down to the section on favorite Linux-friendly web hosting company and cast your vote for Contegix. Contegix is not only Linux-friendly, they are huge supporters of Groovy, Grails and open source in general. In fact Contegix is hosting the Groovy and Grails projects along with all of Codehaus.org!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Pragmatic Grails Book in the Works!

I've always been impressed with the Pragmatic Programmers: as software artisans, as writers and as publishers. From a developer's perspective, you just can't beat the Pragmatic Programmers books. Not only do you have books written by developers for developers, you have books published by developers for developers, and often you have books edited by developers for developers.

When it comes to Groovy books, again, the Pragmatic Programmers shine. There are several good Groovy books out there. (Who can ever forget GinA?) But if I had to be stranded on a desert island with only one Groovy book (sounds kind of fun actually... can I bring my family?), it would have to be either Programming Groovy or Groovy Recipes, both Pragmatic titles.

All that to say that I am thrilled to announce that the Pragmatic Programmers will be coming out with their first Grails book! I don't know what it will be called or when it will ship, but it will be a "quick start guide," aimed at meeting the needs of all those new converts you are all out there making, as well as the untold millions of Spring users who are only a single Graeme Rocher demo away from becoming Grails users.

Another really cool thing for me about this new book is that I get to write it! I am almost as excited by this opportunity as I am overwhelmed by the responsibility. It is a big challenge, but I will do my best, and with God's help we'll soon have a book that can help rescue all those poor developers who are still suffering with Struts and JSF.

Another side benefit: with this task along with GroovyMag, I think I finally have a good excuse for my infrequent blog entries. :-)

I want to give a big Thank You to the folks at the Pragmatic Programmers for putting their trust in me and for their support behind the Groovy and Grails community.