Groovy
Find First Non-Null Result From a Closure
While working on the Grails 4 release, I stumbled upon the findResult() method.
With the method findResult() we iterate through an object and find the first non-null result from a closure.
Groovy DSL Builders
This is an awesome collection of blog post about building a DSL (Domain Specific Language) with Groovy by @musketyr. I have linked to DSL related content in the past. This is probably the best DSL link, i posted since I started this newsletter 3 years ago.
- The Concept: The core concept of builders
- The Essence: The closures’ basics
- The Aid: Using the annotations for static compilation
- The Disguise: Hiding the implementation of the builder API
- The Desiccation: Keeping the code DRY
- The Expectations: The importance of handling closures’ owner properly
- The Extension: Designing your builder DSL for extendability
- The Resignation: Rewriting the Groovy DSL builder into Java
- The Navigation: Using the annotations for named parameters
- The Conclusion: The checklist for Groovy DSL builders’ authors
Micronaut
Part 1 - How to Build Microservices with Micronaut JVM-Based Framework
Normally, I refrain to linking my own content. At least I try to. I recently wrote two articles about Micronaut in InfoQ. I hope you don’t mind.
During this tutorial you will create three microservices with different languages: Java, Kotlin and Groovy. You will also learn how easy it is to consume other microservices with Micronaut HTTP Client and how to create functional tests that run fast.
Part 2: Easy Distributed Tracing, JWT Security and AWS Lambda Deployment
In this second tutorial article we are going to add several features to our app: distributed tracing, security via JWT and a serverless function. Moreover, we will discuss the user input validation capabilities offered by Micronaut.
Gradle
Improving Android Build Performance
If you are not an Android developer, don’t be scared by the title. Apart from an Android variants tip, I think every advice in this talk is applicable to none Android apps built with Gradle.
Switching to Gradle
3 hours solid Gradle talk by @CedricChampeau and @ljacomet at devox.
I specially enjoyed the step by step process of manually defining a custom source set. Understanding source sets is key to build JVM apps with Gradle.
They use the new Kotlin DSL. It does not seem to me that the autocomplete helps them much.
What's New in Gradle 5.0
@codejennerator and @eriwen Gradle 5.0 introduction.
Kotlin DSL all about IDE assistance.
Q: Could future version of Gradle gain similar benefits with Groovy @CompileStatic
A: Yes, this is actually a result of the plugins themselves. It can help a little bit but there is much dynamism in all the contracts all the way down that we cannot make it a consistent experience. Kotlin makes that. It enforces static typing.you can gain, have a similar experience with Groovy. We really tried and you know, introducing a whole new DSL is a lot of work and we have done it if we did not think it was absolutely necessary and worth it.
Q: Are there any performance benefits from the Kotlin DSL?
A: No. I mean the Kotlin DSL performance characteristics are very similar to Groovy’s. Kotlin DSL build scripts can be cached in the build cache which makes subsequents uses faster than Groovy but only marginally so. The first compile, the groovy compiler takes a little bit longer with that static typing than Groovy does so the first executions will be a bit slower and subsequents executions will be faster. You know, it depends on the app a bit. There are usually other performance benefits that you can get in other ways than converting to Kotlin DSL. I would make sure that incremental build, build caching, incremental compilation before you consider the Kotlin DSL for performance reasons.
This issue includes several Gradle 5.0 links.
First things first. I like Gradle a lot. I use it every day and I benefit from the technology a lot.
But let me speculate on Gradle's future.
Income: Gradle raised 4.2 M on December 2015. Apart from the money raised, we can assume they have a good contract with Google to provide collaboration with Android studio and some lucrative Gradle enterprise contracts with companies such as LinkedIn or Netflix.
Expenses: According to Linked In has 53 employees. It has several open positions in there website. Those engineer salaries are not cheap.
Future: Are they breaking even? I hope I am wrong but I don't think so. Thus, I think we should hear during 2019, either bad news or news about a new round being raised or an acquisition.
Acquisition. Who can acquire Gradle Inc? Microsoft, Google, Jet Brains? I assume Kotlin DSL brings them even closer to Jet Brains. A company, which I guess, is already close to them due to the Android Studio collaboration. Gradle + JetBrains (IntelliJ+IDEA) + Kotlin could create a development experience close to Apple with Xcode + Swift.
Let us see what is the future of Gradle in 2019. I wish them the best success to all of the employees and the company. But let me express several wishes:
Do i wish Gradle had committed to Groovy's development instead of moving to a Kotlin DSL? Yes, of course. Specially, if you have on your payroll Groovy's top contributors.
Do I wish Gradle allowed any of their employees to contribute to Groovy's development now? Yes, i think that could be thoughtful from a company which, one may argue, was built on the shoulders of Groovy. Officially, they don't plan to deprecate their Groovy's DSL. Thus, it is not too late to allow someone to give back to Groovy's codebase.
A wish for 2019, please Gradle, Inc. do not hire Paul King or Daniel Sun and pull them out of Groovy's development. I think you pulled enough talent out of Groovy's ecosystem already.
Sergio del Amo