In this chapter, we will conduct a whistle-stop tour of the Groovy language. We don't have the scope in this book to cover the whole language in a tutorial fashion, but by the end of the book, we will have covered most of the aspects of the language that you need to be able to write your own Groovy-based DSLs. For now, in this chapter, we will just touch on some of the main points that differentiate Groovy from its parent language—Java.

This chapter makes extensive use of Spock style test assertions throughout. If you have not already read Chapter 3, Essential Groovy DSLs, I would strongly suggest you at least read the Spock tests section of that chapter and familiarize yourself with the unique Spock syntax.