Preface

“Hey, Peter. I think we should throw together a second edition. What do you think?”

“Are you serious? You know how much work we put into the first edition, it nearly killed us both.”

“No, come on. Don’t be thinking major rewrite; be thinking a light-touch iteration just to refresh a few things. It’ll be a snap, done in a couple of months.”

“I’m tired already.”

And so began our journey toward this volume you now hold. It was as far from a light-touch rewrite as any second edition could be. Experts recommend a second edition should have at least 20% new content; I think ours is more like 50%, with a refresh of the rest. So we’re very tired right now!

So much has happened since the first edition. Grails is now owned and backed by an industrial heavyweight, forms a core part of the Spring portfolio, and has seamlessly embraced diverse technologies such as single page web apps, NoSQL, and the Cloud (all of which get special chapters in this new edition). Various plugins have come and gone, having been embraced into the core—and excised from it. Through it all, Grails has remained on the cutting edge of all things web development, and has now developed a loyal following among the larger Java web crowd. This little hipster framework has now become relatively mainstream. And that’s exciting to see.