# Groovy Weekly #47

> Get your weekly dose of Groovy news, including ElasticSearch support, Ratpack book updates, and the latest releases for Groovy, Ratpack, and Gradle.

Author: [Guillaume Laforge](https://glaforge.dev/) | Published: 2014-12-02 | Topics: groovy, groovy-weekly | Canonical: https://glaforge.dev/posts/2014/12/02/groovy-weekly-47/


Today I highly recommend you read about the nice [Groovy dedicated support for ElasticSearch](http://www.elasticsearch.org/blog/making-elasticsearch-groovy-er/)! We also have a few interesting dot releases this week. And there’s the scoop that there’s a Ratpack book in the works!

Don’t forget that the Call for Papers for GR8Conf Europe / US and Greach are still open, if you want to speak about your favorite Groovy technologies and experiments!

## Releases

*   [Groovy 2.4.0-beta-4](https://glaforge.dev/posts/2014/11/26/groovy-2-4-0-beta-4/) released
*   [Groovy 2.3.8](https://glaforge.dev/posts/2014/11/28/groovy-2-3-8-released-too/) released
*   [Ratpack 0.9.11](http://www.ratpack.io/versions/0.9.11) released
*   [Gradle Bintray plugin 1.0](https://twitter.com/_yoav_/status/539551753742471168) released with Maven Central sync
*   A much faster [Asset Pipeline Gradle plugin with v2.0.4](https://twitter.com/davydotcom/status/539478433445994496)
*   First public version of an [HTML sanity checker Gradle plugin](https://twitter.com/gernotstarke/status/539441261531660289)
*   [GroovySparql 0.9](https://plus.google.com/b/113675159854671799959/+AlBakerDev/posts/9tMes6wcaTX?cfem=1) released

## Articles

*   "[Making ElasticSearch Groovy-er](http://www.elasticsearch.org/blog/making-elasticsearch-groovy-er/)" with a dedicated Groovy client to interact with ElasticSearch
*   Jochen "blackdrag" Theodorou experiments with Java's processing API for a [stub-less Groovy joint compiler](http://blackdragsview.blogspot.fr/2014/11/a-joint-compiler-for-groovy-and-java.html)
*   MrHaki's Grails goodness: [create new application without wrapper](http://mrhaki.blogspot.fr/2014/11/grails-goodness-create-new-application.html)
*   [Testing JVM server-side JavaScript with Jasmine, Spock and Nashorn](http://eshepelyuk.github.io/2014/11/26/-testing-jvm-javascript-jasmine-spock-nashorn.html), by Evgeny Shepelyuk
*   Series of articles on [getting started with Gradle](http://www.petrikainulainen.net/getting-started-with-gradle/)
*   In this interview, JetBrains developer Maxim Medvedev mentions that [Groovy and Apple Swift are similar in terms of IDE support](http://blog.jetbrains.com/objc/2014/11/cooking-swift-an-interview-with-maxim-medvedev/), as both languages have type inference, closures, and higher order functions
*   On [recursive observables with RxJava, and showing how Groovy can cut verbosity](https://jkschneider.github.io/blog/2014/recursive-observables-with-rxjava.html) down

## Presentations

*   [Android development with Groovy](https://twitter.com/madridgug/status/537944334008872960), by Mario García, at CodeMotion Spain 2014

## News

*   [Grails Diary week 48](http://grydeske.net/news/show/72) by Jacob Aae Mikkelsen

## Code snippets

*   Cédric Champeau created a [Docker container with GVM and Groovy](https://gist.github.com/melix/e4b63fd684e63713c162) installed
*   A new [GrooScript demo with snap.svg](http://grooscript.org/demo/snapsvg.html)
*   Using [Firebase from your web pages with Groovy with GrooScript](https://gist.github.com/chiquitinxx/5192ff81d3b3351e3f1d)
    
## Tweets

*   Cédric Champeau teases for his Groovy Grails eXchange talk where he'll explain how [Groovy leverages Gradle, Asciidoctor, TeamCity for the new website](https://twitter.com/cedricchampeau/status/538261967488974848)
*   [Groovy 2.4 beta-4](https://twitter.com/gvmtool/status/537882370066874369) available through GVM
*   The [GVM announcement of the availability of Groovy 2.4 beta-4 was done from Groovy's CI server](https://twitter.com/cedricchampeau/status/537883662633959424) through GVM's API
*   [Gradle 2.2.1](https://twitter.com/gvmtool/status/537874472888705024) available on GVM
*   Bertrand Goetzman spotted a [Yeoman generator for Angular.JS + Ratpack](https://twitter.com/bgoetzmann/status/537363461832196097) applications
*   Tomas Lin suggests a [Ratatouille inspired book cover for Dan Woods' upcoming Ratpack book](https://twitter.com/tomaslin/status/537436124189175809)
*   Eugene Kamenev is showing a screenshot of an [Android Wear application written in Groovy](https://twitter.com/eugenekamenev/status/537664752621989889)
*   Roberto Guerra is having fun with [Ratpack and Gulp.JS](https://twitter.com/robertoguerra19/status/538048345529663489)
*   [Groovy 2.3.8](https://twitter.com/gvmtool/status/538269325959106561) has been released on GVM
*   Dierk König is looking forward to using Tim Yates' [groovy-stream library](https://twitter.com/mittie/status/539056498073407488) more
*   Jacob Aae Mikkelsen will be [teaching web development with Groovy and Grails at the University of Southern Denmark](https://twitter.com/JacobAae/status/538115269034774528)
*   Rob Fletcher points at [Gdub a tool that transparently uses gradle or gradlew when available](https://twitter.com/rfletcherEW/status/538283579978317825)
*   The Grain framework now features some [stylish bootstrap based templates](https://twitter.com/grainframework/status/539409491197173760)

## Book

*   Dan Woods will write a [book on Ratpack](https://twitter.com/danveloper/status/537277382571610112) for O'Reilly

## Events

*   [Autentia becomes gold sponsor for the Greach](https://twitter.com/greachconf/status/537548869429522433) conference
*   [Pronoid becomes gold sponsor of Greach](https://twitter.com/greachconf/status/538273658494406656)
*   Remember that the [Call for Paper of the Greach conference is still open](https://twitter.com/greachconf/status/538271091085418496)!
*   You can [buy tickets for the Greach](https://twitter.com/greachconf/status/539356504244367360) conference now!
*   The [GR8Conf Europe and GR8Conf US Call for Paper](https://twitter.com/gr8conf/status/539577626185052160) is still open