EPISODE 46 - Guillaume LaForge on Groovy and Gaelyk, an App Engine Groovy platform

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DATE : Wed, 2 Dec 2009 16:43:00 GMT
Entered in Database : 2009-12-02 16:43:00
length : 61906463
Link to the Show / Show Notes

Today's interview features the Groovy luminary Guillaume LaForge.  Guiallume's work on improving the Groovy language paved the way for the innovative frameworks such as Grails and Griffon, and showed a whole generation of Java developers to stop worrying and love dynamic programming.Guiallaume is the Groovy project lead, and is constantly improving the language.  One of his newer efforts is the App Engine framework Gaelyk.  Running on top of Groovy, this framework allows developers to build Google App Engine web sites with very little effort.  We talked to Guillaume about the project, and about his thoughts on Java 7 as well.  This week we took questions from the 'twitterverse', and I started using Google Wave to edit my show notes.  Note:  show notes are fluid and will be updated later today.  I wanted to get the podcast online first.Enjoy,KenGroovy 1.7 & upcoming - we have closures today...currently anonymous inner classes missing - you'd use closuresSupporting anonymous IC in 1.7AST transformations in 1.6 - annotations trigger compilation @Delegate, @Singleton, etc... @Lazy, etc...1.7 - simplify how people would write transformations - adding AST builder - provide code fragments, generates AST for compiler transformsdynamic typesmodify program - SPOCK - BDD * get link and mention in show notes * GroovyGaelyk - May - GAE Java team - checked w/Groovy team - made sure Groovy runs well on AppEngine - needed something toGroovlets, small groovy web scripts - just write a script!Templates - separate Groovy code from viewInject Google features into scripts, not abstract them too muchIs researching sitemesh integration but likely not including it directly (providing instructions at some point)DataStore was easy to wrap with a thin veneer - is hoping to more groovify and add a DSL around itMail - added ONE method to enrich base class to make it eaiser to use from scriptingRoute support in 0.32 - Route support - more work but not complex to do...Some projects running in Gaelyk - early days...javascript toolkit for writing iphone web apps iui - demo app is built on Gaelyk (need link)G's app: Gaelyk and Groovy ConsoleCommunity feedback - will drive some enhancements, committed to Groovy language too!Users have became contributors - submitting suggested changes / patchesGaelyk app: Groovyconsole.appspot.com used progressive schema evolution...Gaelyk site: (runs on Gaelyk) gaelyk.appspot.comGoogle App Engine w/Spring MVC & Grails fanaticsQuerying support on deck potentially for datastoreGroovy 1.8 - cover changes [get info from text - missed details]Closures - working document - mentions dynamic interfaces for closures, groovyc compiler could create same interfaces under the hood - could be interoperable POTENTIALLY...Pass groovy closure to java class? See how languages work together...Java closures - cannot access non-final vars, etc... Shouldn't replace Groovy closures with Java closures... Syntax not set in stone - do we have to support Java syntax? Still needs definition.Jigsaw (JDK modularity) - maybe pull pieces into modules (groovlets, etc)... OSGi as well, need to evaluate. 

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