# Groovy Weekly #55

> Catch up on Groovy 2.4's release, SpringOne2GX updates, and the community's robust discussions following Pivotal's Groovy/Grails divestment.

Author: [Guillaume Laforge](https://glaforge.dev/) | Published: 2015-01-27 | Topics: groovy, groovy-weekly | Canonical: https://glaforge.dev/posts/2015/01/27/groovy-weekly-55/


This week is a bit more positive than the previous with the announcement of the [release of Groovy 2.4](https://glaforge.dev/posts/2015/01/21/groovy-2-4-released/)!

But some interesting and thoughtful pieces have also been written about last week’s sad news about Pivotal divesting in Groovy and Grails.

In spite of this, [SpringOne2GX 2015 has been announced with 4 Groovy and Grails tracks](https://twitter.com/springone2gx/status/559903903756861440), in Washington DC, mid-September.

Last but not least, the [second edition of Groovy in Action is going into production](https://twitter.com/mittie/status/558011051313491969)!
  
## Releases

*   [Groovy 2.4](https://glaforge.dev/posts/2015/01/21/groovy-2-4-released/) released
*   [GMaven Plus 1.3](http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/GMaven-1-3-Released-td5722239.html) released
*   [SwissKnife 1.2.2](https://twitter.com/arasthel92/status/559659062309449728) released
*   [Second release candidate for GrooScript 1.0](https://twitter.com/grooscript/status/557999421691269120)
*   [GrooScript Gradle plugin 0.10](https://twitter.com/grooscript/status/558000095070015488) released
*   [Gradle 2.3-rc-1](https://twitter.com/gradleware/status/560099446508519426) available for testing

## Articles

*   Voxxed notes that [Groovy is back to business with its 2.4 release](https://www.voxxed.com/blog/2015/01/groovy-verse-back-business-2-4-release/)
*   Object Partners writes [Keep Calm and Groovy on](http://www.objectpartners.com/2015/01/23/keep-calm-groovy-on/)!
*   Henrique Lobo Weissmann compares [Groovy and Grails to "bridges" technology](http://www.itexto.com.br/devkico/en/?p=69)
*   Dan Vega shares his [thoughtful views on the Groovy & Grails loss of funding](http://therealdanvega.com/blog/2015/01/20/pivotal-drops-groovy-grails-sponsorship) from Pivotal
*   Peter Ledbrook shares his [thoughts on the future of Groovy](http://blog.cacoethes.co.uk/groovyandgrails/the-future-of-groovy)
*   TheRegister covers the [loss of sponsorship from Pivotal of the Groovy and Grails projects](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/22/open_source_java_grails_and_groovy_as_pivotal_pulls_out/)
*   Dustin Marx writes about the [total bummer that Pivotal drops Groovy](http://java.dzone.com/articles/total-bummer-pivotal-drops)
*   Koshuke Kawaguchi shares his view that the [Groovy project should have a clear governance structure](http://kohsuke.org/2015/01/20/groovy-project-should-have-a-clear-governance-structure/)
*   Mike Miller detects a [disturbance in the (Groovy & Grails) force](http://programmingitch.blogspot.dk/2015/01/i-detect-disturbance-in-groovy-grails.html)
*   Groovy and Grails, [GR8 without Pivotal](http://www.intelligrape.com/blog/groovy-and-grails-gr8-without-pivotal/) writes IntelliGrape's Himanshu Seth
*   Craig Burke worked on a [document builder to create Word and PDF documents in Groovy](http://www.craigburke.com/2015/01/22/groovy-document-builder.html)
*   The [Groovy 2.4 release notes](http://beta.groovy-lang.org/releasenotes/groovy-2.4.html)
*   The [Groovy 2.4 changelog](http://beta.groovy-lang.org/changelog-2.4.0.html) now up on the new Groovy website
*   A Quora question: "[I've started a Grails project, what should I do?](https://www.quora.com/Pivotal-is-no-longer-sponsoring-Grails-I-have-a-Grails-project-in-the-works-What-should-I-do)"
*   Another Quora question: [why is Pivotal ending sponsorship of Groovy and Grails](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Pivotal-ending-the-sponsorship-of-Groovy-and-Grails)?
*   MrHaki's Groovy goodness: [take or drop last items of a collection](http://mrhaki.blogspot.fr/2015/01/groovy-goodness-take-or-drop-last-items.html)
*   On [building multiple editions of an Android application with Gradle](http://blog.robustastudio.com/mobile-development/android/building-multiple-editions-of-android-app-gradle/) by Hassan Ibraheem
*   [JVM metrics + Grails = awesomeness](https://www.voxxed.com/blog/2015/01/jvm-metrics-grails-awesomeness/), by Erwan Arzur
*   Yamila Moreno comes back on her Groovy 101 series with a post on [Groovy, GVM, Gradle, Travis and Jenkins](http://moduslaborandi.net/groovy-101-gradle-travis-and-jenkins/)
*   Using the [CIA world fact book with Groovy](http://www.perfectlearn.com/2015/01/how-i-used-the-cia-world-factbook-to-test-my-product/)
*   Let’s talk commitment: [Gradle and version control](http://blog.ship.io/2015/01/23/lets-talk-commitment-gradle-and-version-control/), by Tim Rosenblatt

## Podcast

*   The Groovy podcast [interviewed Graeme Rocher and Guillaume Laforge](https://twitter.com/dailygrailstip/status/557943849251643393)

## Interviews

*   Project lead [Graeme Rocher on the future of Grails](http://jaxenter.com/grails-future-113958.html) on JaxEnter

## Presentations

*   A [Grails 3.0 preview](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/grails-3-preview) by Graeme Rocher, recorded at SpringOne2GX 2014
*   The [quest for the holy Grails](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/grails-introduction) by Ken Kousen, recorded at SpringOne2GX 2014
*   [Securing your Grails application, beyond authentication and authorization](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/grails-security-auth), by Colin Harrington, recorded at SpringOne2GX 2014
*   David Carr's latest [Ratpack introduction presentation](http://www.slideshare.net/davidmc24/intro-to-ratpack-cdjdn-2015)

## News

*   You can [upvote this DZone news item about the release of Groovy 2.4](http://www.dzone.com/links/groovy_24_released_with_android_support.html)
*   A fun little [demo of Groovy in the browser with GrooScript](http://grooscript.org/demo/stars.html)
*   Alcatel-Lucent's [PaaS solution leverages Groovy as its orchestration language](http://ecosystem.cloud-band.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/CloudBand-cPaas-Technical-Overview-1.6.pdf)
*   Andy Clement announces [Groovy Eclipse snapshots for Eclipse 4.4 have moved to Groovy 2.4](https://twitter.com/andy_clement/status/559061751736455169)
*   [Graxxia, a mathematics library for Groovy](https://github.com/ssadedin/graxxia), wrapping commons-math, OpenCSV, GroovyCSV
*   Jacob Aae Mikkelsen [Grails Diary](http://grydeske.net/news/show/80)

## Books

*   Dierk König is announcing that [Groovy in Action eventually goes to production](https://twitter.com/mittie/status/559841646654029824)!

## Code snippets

*   In [24 lines of Groovy code to develop a JAX-RS service with OpenEJB](https://gist.github.com/rmannibucau/e14324cdfc278ad388f1)

## Tweets

*   A Twitter [poll considers Google, Red Hat, Netflix and Gradleware as best sponsors](https://twitter.com/alvaro_sanchez/status/559635311329026048) for the Groovy and Grails projects
*   Gradleware initiated a [twitter hashtag on "why Gradle"](https://twitter.com/hashtag/WhyGradle?src=hash), to which many contributed. Why do you use Gradle?
*   Dierk remarks that [Groovy 2.4 is as a compelling Android alternative to Java](https://twitter.com/mittie/status/558011051313491969)
*   Sergey Tselovalnikof noticed a [funny little banner in Groovy's build](https://twitter.com/SerCeMan/status/557960043380109312)!
*   [Groovy 2.4.0](https://twitter.com/gvmtool/status/557941663319203841) available through GVM
*   [Gradle 2.3-rc-1](https://twitter.com/gvmtool/status/560101012623880192) available through GVM
*   Peter Ledbrook is looking forward to seeing the impact of Gradle's new configuration model
*   Cédric Champeau remarks that [positive comments outnumber FUD by an order of magniture](https://twitter.com/cedricchampeau/status/557822571543273473)
*   Cédric Champeau announces the [changes in versions in the Github branches](https://twitter.com/CedricChampeau/status/558197359197560832) following up the release of Groovy 2.4
*   [Performance improvements against Groovy 2.4](https://twitter.com/mittie/status/558252300775731200) when Dierk König is running the self testing listings of Groovy in Action
*   Iván López thinks [Google should sponsor the Groovy and Grails projects](https://twitter.com/ilopmar/status/558274612287778816), especially now that Groovy 2.4 supports the Android platform
*   Florent Biville thinks [since Groovy supports Android, Google should hire the Groovy and Grails teams](https://twitter.com/fbiville/status/558977065710800896)
*   GradleWare offers two [free O'Reilly e-books on Gradle](https://twitter.com/tomaslin/status/558806680599670784)
*   Erik Pragt shares a glimpse into the [new Asciidoctor-based Geb documentation](https://twitter.com/epragt/status/558983812655640576)
*   The [Groovy Light Table client is not dead](http://rundis.github.io/blog/2015/gr_lt_status_jan2015.html) says Magnus Rundberget
*   Marco Vermeulen is making progress on the [GVM security access for vendors](https://twitter.com/marc0der/status/559130196855771136)
*   Antonio Goncalves tweets that a Maven [pom.xml with the GMaven plugin and hundreds lines of Groovy code is probably by someone who wanted to use Gradle](https://twitter.com/agoncal/status/560001785654685696) but couldn't
    
## Events

*   The [Greach organizers have received lots of great talk proposals](https://twitter.com/greachconf/status/559035001225101313)
*   [SpringOne2GX 2015 has been announced](https://twitter.com/springone2gx/status/559903903756861440), with 4 Groovy and Grails tracks, in Washington DC on Sept 14th-17th