# Groovy Weekly #13

> Groovy Weekly #13 delivers essential updates, new releases, and articles on Spring Boot, Grails, Gradle, Java 8 integration, and Groovy tools.

Author: [Guillaume Laforge](https://glaforge.dev/) | Published: 2014-03-18 | Topics: groovy, groovy-weekly | Canonical: https://glaforge.dev/posts/2014/03/18/groovy-weekly-13/


Hot on the heels of the Java 8 general availability good news, let’s have a look at the latest news of our beloved Groovy community!

## Releases

*   Keegan Witt announces the [first enhancement release of GMavenPlus](http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GMAVENPLUS/Releases)
*   Marco Vermeulen updates [GVM SDK to 0.5.4](https://bintray.com/vermeulen-mp/gvmtool/gvm-sdk/0.5.4/view)
*   Andrés Almiray releases version 1.0 of his [Gradle quickstart lazybones template](https://twitter.com/aalmiray/status/444196810140430336)[](http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GMAVENPLUS/Releases)

## Articles

*   Jenn Strater speaks about the [Gr8Ladies mission](http://jennstrater.blogspot.fr/2014/03/gr8ladies-mission.html)
*   Dan Woods explores [Spring Boot for micro-services and also shows the Groovy support](http://www.infoq.com/articles/microframeworks1-spring-boot) with Spring Boot CLI
*   Tomás Lin's [notes on Spring Boot, Websockets, StompJS and AngularJS](http://fbflex.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/spring-boot-websockets-stompjs-and-angularjs-a-few-notes/)
*   Tomás Lin details how to [build web content JARs for Spring Boot with Gradle](http://fbflex.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/building-web-content-jars-for-spring-boot-with-gradle/)
*   Michael Scharhag shows how you can [benefit from Groovysh](http://www.mscharhag.com/2014/03/groovy-shell.html)
*   Tim Yates details the progress and [Java 8 support of the Groovy Stream](http://blog.bloidonia.com/post/79285969149/groovy-stream-updates-and-java-integration) library
*   Alex Staveley writes about the [good use of closures](http://java.dzone.com/articles/good-use-closures)
*   MrHaki explains how to [use Hibernate native SQL queries in Grails](http://mrhaki.blogspot.fr/2014/03/grails-goodness-using-hibernate-native.html)
*   Matt Cholick shows how to [use Gradle to build and apply AST transformations](http://www.cholick.com/entry/show/276)
*   MrHaki covers how to [combine Grails constraints with shared constraints](http://mrhaki.blogspot.fr/2014/03/grails-goodness-combining-constraints.html)
*   An update on [Griffon's simple-jpa plugin](http://thesolidsnake.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/whats-new-in-simple-jpa-0-6/)
*   A [sample Griffon application](http://thesolidsnake.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/a-sample-application-for-simple-jpa-laundry/) with the simple-jpa plugin
*   Using [Grails REST for authentication in an Angular.JS](http://asoftwareguy.com/2014/03/17/using-grails-rest-for-authentication-in-an-angularjs-spa/) single page application
*   Mark Reinhold while mentioning those who contributed to the Java 8 release thanks our very own [Cédric Champeau from the Groovy project for his useful bug reports for Java 8](http://mreinhold.org/blog/jdk8-ga)
*   Vivek Garg explains how to integrate [Tumblr within Grails](http://www.intelligrape.com/blog/2014/03/13/integrating-tumblr-with-grails-application/) applications
*   Uday Pratap Singh shows how to [apply layout to template at runtime in Grails](http://www.intelligrape.com/blog/2014/03/16/applying-layout-to-template-at-runtime-in-grails-application/) applications

## Presentations

*   Baruch Sadogursky discusses [creating DSLs](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/groovy-plugin-dsl) which support plugins written both in Groovy or Java, addressing good public API design practices, security, and classpath isolation. Presentation given at SpringOne2GX 2013

## Code snippets

*   Cédric Champeau created a [solver for the addictive 2048 game using Geb and Groovy](https://twitter.com/CedricChampeau/status/445967056245387264)
*   Tim Yates plays with the [RxJava's Groovy support](https://gist.github.com/timyates/9624727)
    
## Tweets

*   A handful of d[oor busters tickets for GR8Conf Europe](https://twitter.com/gr8conf/status/445513675659821056) 2014 are still available
*   MrHaki, alias Hubert Klein Hikkink, is starting work on a [Grails goodness book](https://twitter.com/mrhaki/status/443983670672908288)
*   André Steingreß noticed [how light the documentation related to Ratpack's Groovy support](https://twitter.com/asteingr/status/446019973128146945) is... perhaps it's time to help and contribute?
*   Tip on how to [set headers for a url.text](https://twitter.com/DailyGrailsTip/status/443235714239438848) Groovy call
*   If you want to learn more about [Gaelyk's developments](https://twitter.com/greach_es/status/444141558036590592) from Gaelyk's lead developer Vladimír Oraný's own mouth, don't miss this session from the Greach conference
*   Sébastien Blanc shows a screenshot of a [Grails backend using AeroGear unified push server](https://twitter.com/sebi2706/status/443678260766212096)

## Other news

*   First [speakers of the GR8Conf Europe](http://storify.com/glaforge/first-gr8conf-europe-2014-speakers-are-announced) 2014 event are being announced
*   Jacob Aee Mikkelsen’s weekly [Grails diary](http://grydeske.net/news/show/35)
*   I forgot to mention the previous week [Grails diary](http://grydeske.net/news/show/33) in my latest Groovy Weekly column

## Books

*   You can support [Hubert Klein Ikkink's Groovy and Grails goodness](https://leanpub.com/groovy-goodness-notebook) efforts by buying the Groovy goodness book
*   Orest Ivasiv [reviews Ken Kousen's "Making Java Groovy"](http://www.halyph.com/2014/03/review-making-java-groovy.html) book

## Events

*   A [GR8Ladies meetup in Minneapolis](http://www.eventbrite.com/e/gr8ladies-meetup-st-cloud-mn-tickets-10858087833?aff=twitter1), MN (USA) on March 21st
*   The [GR8Ladies will be at Women Techmakers](https://twitter.com/Gr8Ladies/status/440298407874158593), in Minneapolis, on March 22nd
*   The [Call for Papers of the SpringOne2GX 2014](https://twitter.com/springcentral/status/441693398152400896) conference will end on April 30th
*   The [Greach conference is offering 23 books and 27 ebooks](https://twitter.com/greach_es/status/441591425487364097) to win for the attendees
*   Gradleware reminds that \*you\* could be a [presenter at the Gradle Summit 2014](https://twitter.com/Gradleware/status/440380894059044864)!
*   Hubert Klein Ikkink (alias MrHaki) will be presenting a [getting started Grails university session for the NLJUG](https://twitter.com/jdriven_nl/status/440521630737911809) on March 25th