Web frameworks are playing a major role in the creation of today's most compelling web applications, because they automate many of the tedious tasks, allowing developers to instead focus on providing users with creative and powerful features. Java developers have been particularly fortunate in this area, having been able to take advantage of Grails, an open source framework that supercharges productivity when building Javadriven web sites. Grails is based on Groovy, which is a very popular and growing dynamic scripting language for Java developers and was inspired by Python, Ruby, and Smalltalk. Beginning Groovy and Grails is the first introductory book on the Groovy language and its primary web framework, Grails. This book gets you started with Groovy and Grails and culminates in the example and possible application of some realworld projects. You follow along with the development of each project, implementing and running each application while learning new features along the way. What youll learn Understand the fundamentals of the open source, dynamic Groovy scripting language and the Grails web framework. Capitalize upon Grails welldefined framework architecture to build web applications faster than ever before. Improve your web application with cuttingedge interface enhancements using Ajax. Use Grails objectrelational mapping solution, GORM, to manage your data store more effectively than ever before. Take advantage of Groovy to create reporting services, implement batch processing, and create alternative client interfaces. Deploy and upgrade your Grailsdriven applications with expertise and ease. Discover an alternative client in Groovy as well. Who this book is for Java and web developers looking to learn and embrace the power and flexibility offered by the Grails framework and Groovy scripting language.