Grails in the Enterprise 2010 L.A. JUG April 4 th 2010 By Todd R. Ellermann

1. Grails in the Enterprise 2010 L.A. JUG April 4th 2010 By Todd R. Ellermann • With Key Contributions from VT team members: • Ken Ellinwood, David Benjamin, Ari Miller

2. Todd R. Ellermann • B.S. Computer Engineering University of Arizona • MBA Arizona State University (Certificate in Software Engineering Management) • V.P. of Engineering for VirtualTourist.com • Java Certified 1998 • http://www.betterwebapp.com • Wrote the same web application in 8 languages (screencast, source code, measured silly things like screen cast time and lines of code etc…) • toddecus (aim, twitter, yahoo, skype etc…) • todd@virtualtourist.com

3. VirtualTourist.com • Expedia>TripAdvisor>VirtualTourist • Online Travel Community with emphasis on Real people writing reviews of Hotels and talking about things to do. • Monetize through advertising (CPM,CPC) • VirtualTourist.com Stats: • 8.4 Million Visitors • 30 Million PV / Month • 1.2 Million Members • 1.7 Million Travel Tips • 3.7 Million Photos • 10 Year anniversary this year!

4. What we are going to cover • Why we chose Groovy/Grails • Quick “what is grails” • Grails Versions • Ecosystem around Grails • Plug-ins • IDE/Tools • Building Grails Apps • Convention/Configuration • Under The Hood • Spring • Hibernate • Sitemesh • Use of Dynamic Language • Subclass vs. Closure • GORM • Multiple-data sources • GSQL • URL Mapping • Grails Console • Testing • Hot Deployment • Normal Java stuff still works • Deployment Environment • JMX et al… • Web Services • VT Today

5. VT June 2008 PHP Batch

6. Intro to Groovy / Grails • Groovy ( 1.7.1 latest) • Dynamic Scripting Language • Runs on JVM • Java Syntax - Semi-colons + Closures + heredoc • http://groovy.codehaus.com • Grails (1.2.2, or 1.3-RC1) • Code By convention Framework • Best in Breed Java under the hood • DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) • http://www.grails.org (SpringSource)

7. Do DEMO HERE • Create App • Generate GORM objects • Generate controllers • Def scaffold = true • Generate all • Run-app show validate(), errors etc.. • Passing from a map to a domain.properties

8. Grails Versions • Grails 1.0 (February 4, 2008) (1.0.5 latest) • Rough but stable (1.0.3 very different than 1.0.4-5) • 1.0.4 probably should have been full release • Intro of GORM DSL over hibernate • Grails 1.1 (March 10,2009) (1.1.2 latest) • What we are on today (1.1.1) + Groovy 1.5.7 • Performance improvements (GSP optimization) • Testing • ENUM • Maven • Log4j DSL • Grails 1.2 (Dec 23rd, 2009) (1.2.2 latest) HOT!!! • Dependency Resolution (ivy) • Named Queries • Performance Improvement (iopush+precompile) 2-3x faster • SPRING 3.0 + Spring Annotation • Detailed Datasources • Switch to Tomcat as default container (Spring source influence) • No technical reason provided other than springsource knows tomcat better • Run exact Test not all tests (improved developer cycle) • Grails 1.3-RC1 ???? Uhhh…OK • Move to Groovy 1.7 • More maven crap • Grails 2.0 ???? Not sure why I care • OSGi • Plugins dependency declaration • Security abstraction

9. Plug-in Ecosystem List • 388 plug-ins up from 35 two years ago • Jetty/Tomcat • Quartz • AppEngine • GrailsUI • Searchable • Acegi • Shiro/Nimble (jSecurity) • Weceem (cms) • Datasources • Hibernate Search • Simple commands: grails uninstall-plugin tomcat grails install-plugin jetty • P6spy • GSolr • Jquery/YUI • Paypal • Xfire • Multi-Tenant (web hosting) • Jndi • Ldap • Spring MVC, cache, WS • Flex • Gorm • VERY Easy to write we have a few internal VT plug-ins

10. Plug-in Ecosystem Problems • Abandoned plug-ins • Compatability of two different plugins: • Multi-tenant collides with anything that gets into hibernate interception • Plug-in dependency/assumptions not clear: • Weceem imports Acegi • Nimble assumes shiro, spock, compass et al… • What Version of Grails does this plug-in work with? (Getting better)

11. Tools IDE • IntelliJ • V 8 was a little rough still • V9 is useable, still a little rough in areas • VI • Emacs • Eclipse is WAY behind • Netbeans is OK (from what I hear) • Groovysh • GrailsConsole

12. Maven/Gradle/Grapes/GANT import com.jidesoft.swing.JideSplitButton @Grab(group='com.jidesoft', module='jide-oss', version='[2.2.1,2.3.0)') public class TestClassAnnotation { public static String testMethod () { return JideSplitButton.class.name } } • Grapes is groovy grab() method (ibiblio etc..) • GANT is DSL on top of ANT (no more xml) • Gradle is what Maven should have been (according to Gradle guys not me, verdict not in yet) • Not much tool support yet • No XML • Can call ANT, GANT or Maven pom goals etc.. • Maven Grails Plugin (Maven 2.0.9 and above) • Tool support • .m2/settings.xml • <pluginGroups> <pluginGroup>org.grails</pluginGroup> </pluginGroups> • Create Grails project • Grails built on Hudson with MavenGradle (recent change) mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:2.0-alpha-4:generate \ -DarchetypeGroupId=org.grails \ -DarchetypeArtifactId=grails-maven-archetype \ -DarchetypeVersion=1.2.0 \ -DgroupId=example -DartifactId=my-app Mvn initialize Example is from here: http://www.grails.org/Maven+Integration

13. Convention over configuration Directories mean something. grails-app/conf : data sources, spring, url mapping, configs,Bootstrap grails-app/domain : map these to the database grails-app/controllers : abstraction above servlet, Command Objects grails-app/views : GSP’s and Templates grails-app/taglib : custom taglib’s grails-app/services : Singleton by default Tx or NoTx • Names mean something. • FooService.groovy • FooFilters.groovy • FooTagLib.groovy • FooController.groovy • FooCommand.groovy also @Validateable

14. Under The Hood: Spring • /conf/resources.groovy (Spring DSL) beans = { switch(GrailsUtil.environment) { case "test": serviceLocator( com.vtourist.hotel_tool.testing.ServiceLocator4Tests) {} locationService( com.vtourist.service.location.client.MockLocationService) {} break default: serviceLocator(com.vtourist.common.service.DefaultServiceLocator) { jndiName = DefaultServiceLocator.DEFAULT_JNDI_NAME } locationService(com.vtourist.service.location.client.LocationServiceImpl, ref('serviceLocator')) {} break } locationDetailsCache( com.vtourist.service.location.client.LocationDetailsMRUCache, 1000) { locationService = ref('locationService') } } • Application Context Aware import org.springframework.context.* class FooController implements ApplicationContextAware { ApplicationContext applicationContext CacheService getCacheService() { applicationContext.getBean(“cacheService”)} }

15. Grails 1.2 More Spring From Grails Release Notes: http://www.grails.org/1.2+Release+Notes In this example, going to /hello.dispatch will execute the handleRequest() method and atempt to render either a GSP or JSP view at grails-app/views/hello.(jsp|gsp)

16. Under The Hood: Hibernate • location.hbm.xml override autowire domain object mapping • Dynamic Finders: • def loc = Location.findByName(“El Segundo”) • There are also “by example”:   • def loc = Location.find( new Location(name:’San Juan’) ) • Using GORM DSL to create Criteria Query

17. Hibernate Continued • SQL Get to use Caches and automap to domain objects Note: Use of “heredoc” style GString. Really useful with SQL and inline Templates (emails et al…)

18. Actual SQL executed Hibernate:             SELECT L.ID as ID32_0_, L.cities as cities32_0_, L.latitude as latitude32_0_, L.level as level32_0_, L.longitude as longitude32_0_, L.name as name32_0_, L.NextLevel as NextLevel32_0_, L.Parent1 as Parent8_32_0_, L.Parent2 as Parent9_32_0_, L.parent3 as parent10_32_0_, L.parent4 as parent11_32_0_, LM.Location as Location23_1_, LM.Cities as Cities23_1_, LM.HotelPics as HotelPics23_1_, LM.HotelTips as HotelTips23_1_, LM.Members as Members23_1_, LM.Pictures as Pictures23_1_, LM.Tips as Tips23_1_              FROM Location L,                   LocationMeta LM             WHERE ID32_0_ = Location23_1_                   AND                   Tips23_1_ >= ?Bangkok has 10656 tips

19. Under The Hood: Sitemesh • GSP == JSP + JSTL + Grails Taglib + Groovy • Taglibs are Sooo Easy • Templates sitemesh • _rightWellGoogleTextLinks.gsp • <g:render template=”rightWellGoogleTextLinks" model="[’textLinksResult':textLinksResult]" /> class VirtualTouristTagLib { static namespace = ‘vt’ def locationService def locationForLocationName = { attrs, body -> def locationName = attrs[’locationName'] def location = locationService.getLocationByName(locationName) if(location != null) { request.setAttribute(’location', location) out << body() } } } <vt:locationForLocationName locationName=“$[locationName]”> <h1>This city ${locationName}‘s parent location is ${location.parent.name}</h1> </vt:locationForLocationName>

20. Dynamic Method Invocation • Groovy allows method names to be specified in Strings – e.g., instance.”foo”() calls the instance’s foo() method. • Can be used to simplify method dispatch.

21. Closures vs Subclasses • Template Method pattern revisited from GOF 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. abstract class BaseAlgorithm { protected int value1, value2; public abstract int calculate(); } class SubAlgorithm extends BaseAlgorithm { { public intcaculate() { return value1 + value2; } } Java Version class Algorithm { int value1, value2 int calculate( def closure) { return closure( this) } } a = new Algorithm( value1: 40, value2: 2) printlna.calculate( { algs -> algs.value1 - algs.value2 }) Groovy Version

22. GORM Datasource DSL • Bind all domain objects to this datasource depending on environment. • Access to hibernate directly • Cache Control • GORM will “create” tables automatically in test,console but “validate” in other ENV’s • Can use JNDI in Integration, QA, and Production

23. Datasources Plug-in Datasources How do I bind GORM objects to 2 or more datasources? Note the binding of domain objects to different domain. Not shown. The damn tables have to also exist in our original VT schema! Note the lack of bound domains for 3rd datasource, now we can use that for “GSQL” Be careful with GSQL et al… not the same rules for releasing connections back to the pool. Future: How do I have some objects bound Read/Write and some bound Read Only to a slave?

24. GSQL/JDBC Be careful there are differences between getting your Sql object from jndi/ datasources vs instantiating connection live.

25. Grails Console • Demo Console • Quick turn around to answer the question what happens when/if?

26. Grails Controller -- Command DTO, Details Object, or Grails Command

27. Unit Testing That Controller

28. HotDeploy • Everything not “injected” • Domain out • Command out • Controllers, GSP’s, Views, some services

29. Groovy = Java – Junk + Killer Ecosystem • Everything you can do in Java I can do better/faster or at least the same: • Logging (log4j) • Quartz • Annotations • JNDI • SpringSecurity (ACEGI) • JMS • Xstream • JDBC • Continue to abuse the J2EE label etc…

30. WAR on the JVM • grails [env=production] war • Compiles source to byte code • Includes groovyAll.jar • Includes 53 other jars (grails, spring hibernate,etc..) • Precompiles gsp • Creates fooApp.war with environment settings of “production” • Everyone with existing “J2EE” infrastructures is going to love this. It’s like the linux server in the closet. • “So I skipped the EJB’s and finished a year early… does mgmt really care… No!” -- unknown

31. “Services” • The defaults of Grails convention-over-configuration encourage a service layer within the application • Service classes are Spring singletons(configurable) • dependencies are injected by Spring IOC • dependencies include other services and data access layer "domain" objects • Local clients easily access services • service singletons are injected by Spring IOC • Controllers do the following to access a local service: class AbcController { def xyzService // causes Spring to auto inject xyzService def doStuff = { def arg1 = params.arg1 …. result = xyzService.businessMethod( arg1 ) …. }

32. URL Mapping URL DSL easy to create SEO friendly URLs or even map legacy URL’s to new controllers. Also interestingly easy to take true RESTful approach

33. JMX example • Exposing a Grails Service to a remote client requires installing plug-ins for desired protocols • add the protocols to a static member list on your service class class MonitorService { static expose = ['jmx'] def counter = 1 def incrementCounter() { ++counter } } What if I could use this to tell the front end applications which service servers were currently available and prevent downtime as new code bases were deployed?

34. JMX Console

35. VT Today

36. What we covered • Developer cycle time GORM + GrailsConsole • Testing • Java Me Too! • Deployment • Why we chose grails • Grails Ecosystem and Versions • Spring • Hibernate • Use of Dynamic Language

37. Resources • Sites • http://www.grails.org/ • http://groovy.codehaus.org/ • Nabble (mailing list surfaced) • IBM Mastering Grails et al… • Books • The Difinitive Guide to Grails 2nd Edition • Groovy In Action • Beginning Groovy & Grails Novice -> Professional Its OK not great • Mailing lists • Grails About 80 messages a day • Groovy

38. Sad attempt at Groovy Humor • def tripAdvisor = new BestTravelWebsite( • domainName:”www.tripadvisor.com et al…”, • parent:expedia) class BestTravelWebsite { def domainName def parent def memberCount def photoCount def travelTipCount def UniqueVisitors def pageViews } def virtualTourist = new BestTravelWebsite( domainName:”www.virtualtourist.com”, parent:tripAdvisor, memberCount:1,200,000, photoCount: 3,702,063, travelTipCount:1,781,378, uniqueVisitors: 8,400,000, pageViews: 32,000,000) • def expedia = new BestTravelWebsite( • domainName: ”www.expedia.com et al….”, • tickerSymbol: ”EXPE”)