Grails Training: Web Application Development with Groovy and Grails

Course Number: GRO-102
Duration: 5 days
view class outline

Grails Training Overview

Accelebrate's Introduction to Web Application Development with Groovy and Grails training teaches Java developers the basics of Groovy and how to use the Grails framework to rapidly create sophisticated web applications.

Location and Pricing

Most Accelebrate courses are taught on-site at our clients' locations worldwide for groups of 3 or more attendees and are customized to their specific needs. Please visit our client list to see organizations for whom we have recently delivered training. These courses can also be delivered as live, private online classes for groups that are geographically dispersed or wish to save on the instructor's or students' travel expenses. To receive a customized proposal and price quote private training at your site or online, please contact us.

In addition, some courses are available as live, online classes for individuals. To see a schedule of online courses, please visit http://www.accelebrate.com/online_training/xml_html_js.htm?action=course&page=GRA101.

Grails Training Prerequisites

All attendees should be familiar with Java™, C#, or a similar object-oriented programming language and be fluent in HTML.

Hands-on/Lecture Ratio

This training class is 60% hands-on, 40% lecture/discussion, with the longest lecture/discussion segments lasting for 20 minutes. Students "learn by doing" with immediate opportunities to apply the material they learn to real-world problems.

Grails Training Materials

All attendees receive a copy of Apress's The Definitive Guide to Grails 2 and related course materials, as well as copies of all code created during class.

Software Needed on Each Student PC

Please contact us for specific setup instructions. In general, you will need:

JDK 1.6 or late
The latest stable release of Grails
A powerful IDE that supports Groovy and Grails, such as SpringSource's Groovy/Grails Tool Suite or IntelliJ IDEA
Related free software and lab files; please contact us for detailed specifications

Grails Training Objectives

All attendees will learn to:

Understand Groovy's relationship to Java
Use the Groovy tools
Master the fundamentals of writing Groovy code
Work with Groovy strings, closures, and collections
See how conditionals, loops, and other control structures differ in Groovy versus Java and other languages
Produce and parse JSON and XML data
Access relational databases from Groovy
Understand the fundamentals of Grails and how it integrates with Spring, Hibernate, and other frameworks
Use domain classes and understand domain class relationships
Understand MVC architecture and best practices for implementing it in Grails applications
Build Groovy Server Pages
Write and use Grails services
Deploy a Grails application

Grails Training Outline

Introduction

Relationship to Java, Similarities, Differences
Groovy Setup, Environment, Documentation
Groovy JDK, Groovy API
Groovy Tools - groovy, groovyc, groovysh, groovyConsole
Writing and Executing Groovy Scripts

Language Basics and Data Types

Everything Is an Object
Numbers
Optional Typing, def
Standard Operators, Operator Overriding
Java Strings and Groovy Strings
Methods in Groovy
Groovy Truth
Assertions in Groovy
Regular Expressions

Collections

Collections, Lists, and Sets
Working with Collections – Adding/Removing Elements, Indexes
Ranges
Simple Operations on Collections
Maps
Working with Maps – Adding/Removing Entries

Closures

Basics
Writing and Calling Closures, Closures as Arguments to Methods
Iterating over Collections – for-in Loop, each(), eachWithIndex()
Advanced Operations on Collections

Conditionals and Loops

Groovy Truth Revisited
if and if-else
Enhanced switch
Elvis Operator
Safe De-reference Operator

Classes

Automatic Imports
Properties and Fields – POGOs vs. POJOs, GroovyBeans
Methods
Constructors
Exceptions
Dynamic Method Invocation and Duck Typing
AST Transformations Overview

Builders and Parsers

How They Work via Metaprogramming
Generating XML with MarkupBuilder
Generating JSON with JsonBuilder
Processing XML with XmlSlurper

Database Access

Issues with JDBC
The Sql Class
Executing Queries
Executing Updates
Basic ORM

Grails Overview and Supporting Frameworks

MVC – Overview of Domain Classes, Controllers, GSPs, Services
Hibernate
Spring
Convention over Configuration
Grails Toolset – the grails Commands
Grails Application Structure
Dynamic Scaffolding

Domain Classes

Configuring a DataSource, dev/test/prod Environments
Properties, id, version, dateCreated, lastUpdated
Constraints and Validation, Unit Testing of Validation Constraints
Inserting and Retrieving Domain Objects
Updating Domain Objects
Integration Testing

Domain Class Relationships

One-to-Many
Unidirectional vs. Bidirectional Relationships
Transitive Persistence
Many-to-Many
Sorting
Lazy and Eager Fetching of Relationships, Batch Fetching

Queries

Dynamic Finders
HQL, Aggregate Functions, Tuple Queries, Explicit and Implicit Joins
Query Parameters for Sorting, Fetching, etc.

Legacy Schemas

Mapping Domain Classes onto Existing Tables
Mapping Relationships
Dynamic Scaffolding (revisited), Static Scaffolding

Controllers

URL Mappings
Writing Actions
Role of SpringMVC DispatcherServlet
Alternative Output Formats: Returning Data in XML and JSON Format
Sharing Data between Components: scopes – request, flash, session, application
Forward vs. Redirect

Groovy Server Pages

Basics, MVC (revisited), Sharing Data between Components (revisited)
Rendering Data and Links
Rendering Errors
Externalized Messages and Internationalization (I18N)

Services

Role of Services
Writing Services
Service Scope and Lifecycle
Injection into Controllers and Unit/Integration Tests

Deployment

Java EE Deployment Overview
Exporting Grails Application into WAR File, Customizing/Deploying the WAR
Using Server-Configured DataSources
Exporting Generated Schema (in Domain-Driven Development)

Conclusion

VB.NET, C#, ASP, & ASP.NET Training

Java Training

SQL Server Training
SharePoint Training

Adobe Training

“Accelebrate,” “Accelerated Learning Celebrated Results,” and the Accelebrate logo are registered trademarks of Accelebrate, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are property of their respective owners. Course outline content may mirror or be derived from the book that each student receives with the course. Otherwise, all content is copyright © 2003- by Accelebrate, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. To contact us, please use the contact form, email info@accelebrate.com us, or call 1 877 849 1850 in the US and Canada, 0808 234 2132 in the UK, 1 800 550 311 in Ireland, or +1 678 648 3113 from all other locations.