Chapter 2. Getting started with Roo

You saw in chapter 1 that Spring Roo, with only a few commands, can really make you more productive as a Spring developer. And by now you’re probably itching to get started on your own Roo-based application. You’ve come to the right place.

In this chapter, we use the Roo shell to create and manipulate an application. We look “under the hood,” exploring the physical layout of a typical Spring Roo project. You’ll learn where key artifacts are located and define some of the key configuration files and directory structures. We also discuss the architectural patterns used by Roo.

Roo encourages experimentation, so let’s get started by firing up the shell and building a basic Roo application.

2.1. Working with the Roo shell

As we mentioned in chapter 1, Roo is controlled through a command-line shell. Let’s use the shell to create a simple training task management application, and introduce some of the major topics we cover in the book along the way.

Using your operating system shell, create an empty directory, taskmanager. Switch to the directory and fire up the Roo shell, using the roo command. You’ll be presented with the Roo command-line prompt:

2.2. How Roo manages your projects

2.3. I want my IDE!

2.4. Refactoring, Roo ITDs and leaving Roo

2.5. Summary

2.6. Resources