Book Image

Introduction to JVM Languages

Book Image

Introduction to JVM Languages

Overview of this book

Anyone who knows software development knows about the Java Virtual Machine. The Java Virtual Machine is responsible for interpreting Java byte code and translating it into actions. In the beginning, Java was the only programming language used for the JVM. But increasing complexity of the language and the remarkable performance of the JVM created an opening for a new generation of programming languages. If you want to build a strong foundation with the Java Virtual Machine and get started with popular modern programming languages, then this book is for you. The book will begin with a general introduction of the JVM and its features, which are common to the JVM languages, helping you get abreast with its concepts. It will then dive into explaining languages such as Java, Scala, Clojure, Kotlin, and Groovy and will show how to work with each language, their features, use cases, and pros and cons. By writing example projects in those languages and focusing on each language’s strong points, it will help you find the programming language that is most appropriate for your particular needs. By the end of the book, you will have written multiple programs that run on the Java Virtual Machine and know about the differences between the various languages.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Chapter 12. Groovy Programming

We are going to build a simple web service in Groovy using the popular Vert.x microservice framework. Our program will make use of the H2 Database Management System (DBMS), a database system that is fully written in Java. We will use the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) standard to interact with H2. XML will be generated using Groovy's MarkupBuilder, a class that is offered in the Groovy Development Kit (GDK), Groovy's runtime library.

This time, we will not use an external build tool responsible for building the project; instead, we'll let the Eclipse IDE handle this job for us. We will be needing some external dependencies (to use the mentioned H2 and Vert.x open source projects) and will use Apache Ivy for this. The Eclipse IDE does not come with Groovy support out of the box, so we need to install a plugin for this language as well. The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

  • Installing the Groovy Eclipse plugin
  • Apache Ivy and IvyDE plugin for Eclipse...