Rocky Mountain Software Symposium
November 20 - 22, 2009 - Denver, CO
Scott Davis
Author of "Groovy Recipes"
Scott Davis is the founder of ThirstyHead.com, a training company that specializes in Groovy and Grails training.
Scott published one of the first public websites implemented in Grails in 2006 and has been actively working with the technology ever since. Author of the book Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java and two ongoing IBM developerWorks article series (Mastering Grails and in 2009, Practically Groovy), Scott writes extensively about how Groovy and Grails are the future of Java development.
Presentations
Groovy XML Ninja Skills
"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you aren't using enough of it." (Anonymous)
XML is everywhere. Whether you are dealing with local configuration files (web.xml, struts-config.xml) or remote web services (SOAP, REST, RSS, Atom), the modern software developer needs to be able to request, slice, and dice XML with ease. That requires a set of razor-sharp tools that reduce the inherent complexity of the problem, not multiply it. Once you see XML tremble in fear at the awesome power of Groovy, you'll wonder what you ever did without it.
In this talk, we look at various Groovy tools to create, parse, and export XML. To read in XML, we'll explore the XmlSlurper and the XmlParser. To write out XML, we'll use the MarkupBuilder, StreamingMarkupBuilder, and the XmlNodePrinter. We'll go beyond simple Plain Old XML (POX) and demonstrate using namespaces, CDATA blocks, and more.
Dim Sum Grails: A Sampler of Practical Non Database-Driven Grails Applications
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece." (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Most Grails tutorials demonstrate how easy it is to build simple CRUD (Create/Retrieve/Update/Delete) applications. While skinning a database with a web front-end is undeniably one beneficial aspect of Grails, it isn't the only thing Grails is good for. As you'll see here, Grails can be used to build a wide variety of web applications. You won't see a single HTML table with "edit" and "delete" links, I promise.
In this talk, we look at a variety of Grails applications that go beyond the simple CRUD metaphor -- blogs, wikis, maps, portals, and more.
RESTful Grails
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." (Albert Einstein)
REST and Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA) are popping up in technical discussions more and more frequently. Here, you'll see practical examples of adding RESTful web services to your Grails application.
In this talk, we look at the native support for REST that Grails offers on the server side. We'll also take advantage of the networking and XML strengths of Groovy to build out a simple but powerful REST client.
Books
by Scott Davis
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Each recipe in Groovy Recipes begins with a concise code example for a quick start, followed by in-depth explanation in plain English. These recipes will get you to-to-speed in a Groovy environment quickly.
You'll see how to speed up nearly every aspect of the development process using Groovy. Groovy makes mundane file management tasks like copying and renaming files trivial. Reading and writing XML has never been easier with XmlParsers and XmlBuilders. Breathe new life into Arrays, Maps, and Lists with a number of convenience methods. But Groovy does more than just ease traditional Java development: it brings modern programming features to the Java platform like closures, duck-typing, and metaprogramming.
As an added bonus, this book also covers Grails. You'll be amazed at how quickly you can have a first-class web application up and running from ground zero. Grails includes everything you need in a single zip file⎯a web server (Jetty), a database (HSQLDB), Spring, Hibernate, even a Groovy version of Ant called GANT. We cover everything from getting a basic website in place to advanced features that take you beyond HTML into the world of Web Services: REST, JSON, Atom, Podcasting, and much much more.
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Each recipe in Groovy Recipes begins with a concise code example for a quick start, followed by in-depth explanation in plain English. These recipes will get you to-to-speed in a Groovy environment quickly.
You'll see how to speed up nearly every aspect of the development process using Groovy. Groovy makes mundane file management tasks like copying and renaming files trivial. Reading and writing XML has never been easier with XmlParsers and XmlBuilders. Breathe new life into Arrays, Maps, and Lists with a number of convenience methods. But Groovy does more than just ease traditional Java development: it brings modern programming features to the Java platform like closures, duck-typing, and metaprogramming.
As an added bonus, this book also covers Grails. You'll be amazed at how quickly you can have a first-class web application up and running from ground zero. Grails includes everything you need in a single zip file⎯a web server (Jetty), a database (HSQLDB), Spring, Hibernate, even a Groovy version of Ant called GANT. We cover everything from getting a basic website in place to advanced features that take you beyond HTML into the world of Web Services: REST, JSON, Atom, Podcasting, and much much more.
by Scott Davis
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There is a hidden revolution going on: geography is moving from niche to the mainstream. News reports routinely include maps and satellite images. More and more pieces of equipment cell phones, cars, computers now contain Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Many of the major database vendors have made geographic data types standard in their flagship products.
GIS for Web Developers introduces Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in simple terms and demonstrates hands-on uses. With this book, you'll explore popular websites like maps.google.com, see the technologies they use, and learn how to create your own. Written with the usual Pragmatic Bookshelf humor and real-world experience, GIS for Web Developers makes geographic programming concepts accessible to the common developer.
This book will demystify GIS and show you how to make GIS work for you. You'll learn the buzzwords and explore ways to geographically-enable your own applications. GIS is not a fundamentally difficult domain, but there is a barrier to entry because of the industry jargon. This book will show you how to "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" of a geographer.
You'll learn how to find the vast amounts of free geographic data that's out there and how to bring it all together. Although this data is free, it's scattered across the web on a variety of different sites, in a variety of incompatible formats. You'll see how to convert it among several popular formats including plain text, ESRI Shapefiles, and Geography Markup Language (GML).
With this book in hand, you'll become a real geographic programmer using the Java programming language. You'll find plenty of working code examples in Java using some of the many GIS-oriented applications and APIs. You'll be able to:
Find free sources of GIS data on the web Browse GIS data using open source desktop viewers Manipulate GIS data programmatically Store and retrieve data using geographically-enabled databases Explore free web toolkits like Google Maps Publish and consume web services using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) interfaces
-
There is a hidden revolution going on: geography is moving from niche to the mainstream. News reports routinely include maps and satellite images. More and more pieces of equipment cell phones, cars, computers now contain Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Many of the major database vendors have made geographic data types standard in their flagship products.
GIS for Web Developers introduces Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in simple terms and demonstrates hands-on uses. With this book, you'll explore popular websites like maps.google.com, see the technologies they use, and learn how to create your own. Written with the usual Pragmatic Bookshelf humor and real-world experience, GIS for Web Developers makes geographic programming concepts accessible to the common developer.
This book will demystify GIS and show you how to make GIS work for you. You'll learn the buzzwords and explore ways to geographically-enable your own applications. GIS is not a fundamentally difficult domain, but there is a barrier to entry because of the industry jargon. This book will show you how to "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" of a geographer.
You'll learn how to find the vast amounts of free geographic data that's out there and how to bring it all together. Although this data is free, it's scattered across the web on a variety of different sites, in a variety of incompatible formats. You'll see how to convert it among several popular formats including plain text, ESRI Shapefiles, and Geography Markup Language (GML).
With this book in hand, you'll become a real geographic programmer using the Java programming language. You'll find plenty of working code examples in Java using some of the many GIS-oriented applications and APIs. You'll be able to:
Find free sources of GIS data on the web Browse GIS data using open source desktop viewers Manipulate GIS data programmatically Store and retrieve data using geographically-enabled databases Explore free web toolkits like Google Maps Publish and consume web services using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) interfaces


