Making Java Groovy

Chapter 4. Using Groovy features in Java

This chapter covers

• Basic code-level simplifications
• Useful AST transformations
• XML processing

In chapter 1 I reviewed many of Java’s arguable weaknesses and drawbacks and suggested ways that Groovy might help ameliorate them. Because that chapter was intended to be introductory I only suggested how Groovy can help, without showing a lot of code examples. Now that I’ve established how easy it is to add Groovy classes to Java applications, when is it helpful to do so? What features, if any, does Groovy bring to Java systems that make them easier to develop?

A guide to the techniques covered in this chapter is shown in figure 4.1. I’ll review several Groovy advantages, like POGOs, operator overloading, ...