# Groovy Weekly #6

> Explore Groovy's latest: Spring Boot RC1, Grails articles, GVM insights, plus presentations on design patterns and plugin creation.

Author: [Guillaume Laforge](https://glaforge.dev/) | Published: 2014-01-28 | Topics: groovy, groovy-weekly | Canonical: https://glaforge.dev/posts/2014/01/28/groovy-weekly-6/


## Releases

*   The first [release candidate of Spring Boot](https://spring.io/blog/2014/01/22/spring-boot-1-0-0-rc1-released) is out, including its lean Groovy support
*   Grain releases are now [available in Maven Central](https://twitter.com/grainframework/status/425887785312976897)
*   Andrés Almiray released [version 0.3.0 of his Gipsy](https://twitter.com/aalmiray/status/426431315463110656) AST transformation for simplifying usage of the service provider interface system

## Articles

*   Pivotal posted Guillaume Laforge's article on the [3 million downloads of Groovy](http://blog.gopivotal.com/products/3-million-downloads-of-the-groovy-programming-language-in-2013) last year and his analysis
*   Kyle Boon describes [how to use meta-annotations to reduce boilerplate code](http://kyleboon.org/blog/2014/01/22/using-meta-annotations-to-dry-your-groovy/)
*   GVM, the Groovy enVironment Manager, is featured on the methods and tools website, thanks to an [article](http://www.methodsandtools.com/tools/gvm.php) from Marco Vermeulen
*   At SpringOne2GX 2013, Ryan Vanderwerf explains [how to create and deploy a Grails application on AWS VPC](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/grails-aws-vpc-2gx) using various services such as RDS, S3, autoscaling, S3FS, EBS, etc.
*   An infographic from Cygnet Infotech about [6 reasons why Grails is an awesome](http://www.cygnet-infotech.com/infographic-6-reasons-why-grails-is-an-awesome-java-web-framework) Java Web framework
*   Bert Van Den Brande writes about using [Spring Boot with Groovy](http://blog.bertvdbrande.com/java/spring-boot-applied-springmvcgroovy/)

## Presentations

*   ZeroTurnaround published a decision maker’s [comparison of Maven, Gradle and Ant + Ivy](http://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/java-build-tools-part-2-a-decision-makers-comparison-of-maven-gradle-and-ant-ivy/)
*   [Simpler stored procedures with Groovy](http://www.objectpartners.com/2014/01/24/simpler-stored-procedures-with-groovy/) by Jeff Sheets from Object Partners
*   Burt Beckwith explains the general process of [creating a Grails plug-in](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/grails-plugin-2gx), the different types of plug-ins, and how to deploy, release and test them.
*   Will Buck provides advice for those interested to [upgrade their applications from Grails 1.x to 2.x](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/grails-upgrade)
*   Venkat Subramaniam shows how to [implement several design patterns](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/groovy-design-patterns), including some GoF ones, using Groovy’s dynamic nature and closures.
*   Jim Driscoll shows how to create Napili, a small program accepting user scripts to [control a turtle using GroovyShell](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/turtle-groovy-dsl), the Binding, overriding behavior with set/getVariable and invokeMethod, and more, recorded at GR8Conf US 2013

## Mailing-list discussions

*   Lari Otari from the Grails team is calling for [feedback on areas where the Grails unit testing support](http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Grails-Unit-testing-improvements-for-Grails-2-4-call-for-feedback-td4653480.html) could be improved
    
## Tweets

*   Surge in [popularity for Gradle](https://twitter.com/rebellabs/status/425676447588818944) in the ZeroTurnaround analysis
*   Cédric Champeau succeeded [making Groovy build with JDK 8](https://twitter.com/cedricchampeau/status/425965163804901376), a first step forward to adding further Java 8 support in Groovy
*   Johannes Link is [reworking his @TailRecursive AST transformation for integration in Groovy 2.3](https://twitter.com/johanneslink/status/427833828229779456)
*   A funny [GORM-like tweet](https://twitter.com/yeiiowsnow/status/425317814388289536) to encourage people to order the second edition of the Grails quick-start guide book

## Jobs

*   A [remote Grails engineer](http://findgrailsjobs.com/job/475-grails-engineer-wixab-telework) for Wixab

## Other news

*   As usual, the the [Grails Diary](http://grydeske.net/news/show/27) is out, week 5 of 2014, by Jacob Aae Mikkelsen
*   A new look for the [GR8Conf Europe website](http://gr8conf.eu/)
  
## Books

*   The [final chapters of Grails in Action](https://twitter.com/manningmeap/status/425672935576453120), 2nd edition are now in Manning's Early Access Program. Peter Ledbrook tells us issues can be reported in their GitHub issue tracker (https://github.com/GrailsInAction/graina2/issues)
    
## Events

*   [First meetup of the GR8 Ladies](https://twitter.com/gr8ladies/status/426078450236260352) of Minneapolis on January 29th
*   The [Call for Papers](http://cfp.gr8conf.org/login/auth) for the GR8Conf Europe (Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 2nd-4th 2014) and GR8Conf US (Minneapolis, USA, on July 28th-29th 2014) conferences is now open
*   The Call for Papers for the [Greach](http://greach.es/) conference (Madrid, Spain, on March 28th and 29th 2014) is also open, till January 31st