Prototyping With Grails
Uploaded by
MOSC2010Prototyping With Grails
Uploaded by
MOSC2010Prototyping with Grails
Mohd Suhaizal
Software Engineer
Jaringan Data Sdn Bhd
”Make everything as simple as possible, but
not simpler” - Albert Einstein
Session Contents
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The Java development scenario
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The history of Grails
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Grails' stack
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Who's using it?
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Let's get started...
Java Development Scenario
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JDK
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Web container/Application server
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Build system
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Application stack
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Persistence framework
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Web framework
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Testing framework
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Logging framework.....
Java Development Scenario
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Each requires configuration
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As development progresses, more XML to
configure....
EFFORT?
TIME?
SKILLS?
Enter Groovy and Grails...
Groovy at a glance
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A dynamic language for the JVM
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Inspired by languages such as Smalltalk,
Python, Ruby and the likes...
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Features dynamic typing, Meta Object
Protocol (MOP), DSL, seamless
integration with Java libraries ...
Grails: A little bit of history
Guillaume Laforge on the Groovy lists in 2005:
Ruby on Rails is all the rage these days, but you
compromise on your past investment, if you’re a
Java shop: developer and IT team skills, training, app
servers, the great JVM platform, third-party
libraries...
Can’t we leverage Groovy and proven technologies
like Spring and Hibernate to bring the “Convention
over Configuration” paradigm on the Java platform,
without compromising on your investment?
An Overview of Grails
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An MVC framework
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Follows the principles popularised by Rails
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CoC – Convention over Configuration
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DRY – Don't Repeat Yourself
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All the goodness of Rails + all the assets
available in Java
The Stack
SiteMesh Spring Hibernate JUnit
Java Language JDK
Java Platform
...and a few more
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Jetty/Tomcat as containers during
development cycle
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HSQLDB as DB for quick development
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Basically, a full development stack to
code, compile, test and run an
application
Case Study: Sky.com
UK's entertainment and communications company
operating a multi-channel television service with
9.4+ millions customers across UK & Ireland
Rebuilds the CMS for its home page using Groovy
and Grails
* Case study by SpringSource
Case Study: Wired.com
The online arm of Wired Magazine, is a cutting edge
guide covering how technology is changing the world
The Product Reviews section is developed from
scratch using Groovy and Grails
* Case study by SpringSource
Use Cases: LinkedIn
A business oriented social networking site, mainly used for
professional networking. It has 70+ millions users, over 200
countries and territories worldwide.
Re-used its existing Spring backend
A Simple Inventory Tracking
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An asset is always located at a location
Whiteboard Whiteboard
Projector Projector
Table Table
ROOM 101 ROOM 102
Getting Started...
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Download and install Groovy & Grails
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Groovy – groovy.codehaus.org
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Grails - www.grails.org
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Set up environment variables for Groovy
& Grails
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GROOVY_HOME
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GRAILS_HOME
Grails Command Line
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Getting the list of available commands
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>grails help
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Commonly used ones (YMMV):
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grails create-app
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grails create-domain-class
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grails create-controller
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grails generate-all
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grails test-app
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grails run-app
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grails war
The First Step
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grails create-app
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Creates application skeleton with predefined
layouts
The MVC Story
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Model – the domain classes representing
the problem domain, as POGO
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View – the view rendering portion
written as GSP
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Controller – control flows, manipulates
the model and delegating the result to
the view through actions
Creating the model
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>grails create-domain-class Asset
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Creates a groovy class and file
representing the domain
Asset.groovy
class Asset{
String name
String category
static constraints = {
name()
category()
}
Persistence
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Supported by Hibernate at the backend
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Dynamic Finders
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Asset.list()
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Asset.findAllByCategory('Table')
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Raw HQL queries
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Asset.findAll(”from Asset a where a.category
=?”, ['Table'])
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Constraints
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nullable, size, email, blank, inList...
Creating the controller
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>grails create-controller Asset
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Creates a controller class named
AssetController in the controller folder
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A controller can have many actions
Controllers
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Located in the controller directory, with
names ending with xxxController
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Easy data binding using params
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asset.properties = params
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A couple of useful methods:
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redirect, forward, flash...
Scaffolding...
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We'll keep things simple through the use
of scaffolding...
def scaffold = true
Views
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Each controller has its own folder
representing its views – CoC
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AssetController - Asset
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Each action has its own GSP.
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list - list.gsp
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Useful Grails tag libraries available
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link, each, if...
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Templating with SiteMesh
What I didn't touched...
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Grails plugins
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Custom taglibs
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Using AJAX
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Creating services
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Creating & running tests
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...
