Biography

Ken Kousen is a technical trainer, software developer, and conference speaker specializing in Java and open source topics, including Android, Spring, Hibernate/JPA, Groovy, Grails, and Gradle. He is the author of the O’Reilly book “Gradle Recipes for Android” and the Manning book “Making Java Groovy”. He also has recorded several video courses for O’Reilly, including two on Android, three on Groovy, two on Gradle, and one on the Spring Framework.

In 2013 was awarded a JavaOne Rockstar award. His academic background include BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from M.I.T., an MA and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton, and an MS in Computer Science from R.P.I. He is currently President of Kousen IT, Inc., based in Connecticut.

The Gradle Will Rock

The Gradle build tool is one of the most successful projects in the Groovy ecosystem because it addresses a difficult problem – every major build is a custom build. Gradle builds are written in Groovy, so the full power of the language is available if you need it. Gradle supports Maven project structure, repositories, and processes without being bound by its limitations. This talk will cover the basics of Gradle both through simple projects and by examining the build files for other open source projects. With major systems like Grails, Hibernate, and even the Spring Framework moving to Gradle, this is a technology worth taking the time to understand.

The Groovy Web: groovlets, Micro-frameworks, and Grails

Groovy has several ways to make web development easier. Groovlets are part of the language, are easy to use and deploy, and are the basis of larger frameworks like Gaelyk. Groovy also supports the new style of web development with micro-frameworks. One in particular is Ratpack, based on the Sinatra project in the Ruby world. Finally, there is Grails, the elegant combination of Groovy DSLs with Spring and Hibernate. This talk will demonstrate them all and discuss where each is useful and appropriate.

Testing Groovy and Java Systems

One easy way to add Groovy to existing Java systems is through testing. Writing tests in Groovy is easier than Java, without worrying about deploying Groovy in production. Groovy provides several capabilities to simplify testing, from GroovyTestCase and its subclasses to built-in mocks and stubs to the popular Spock framework. This talk will review the available options and demonstrate how to use them on combined Groovy and Java applications.