I like Ruby and have a soft spot for Java and all things Java, since it was my favorite programming language before I started my professional career and the language that got me my first coding gig. So you’d think that I’d love Grails, a platform that aims to be the best of both worlds. You’d be wrong. However, O’reilly’s tutorial on Grails is pretty good. However, I am not sure that I would recommend it for anyone but a professional developer, as the presenters do seem to assume that the viewer has some professional (mostly Java) experience.
Like all O’reilly videos the production qualities were superb; the video and audio were both crystal clear and I had no problem viewing the code samples on screen. The presenters were very knowledgeable and took time to walk you through some of the more confusing aspects of Grails. The content was introductory enough that most developers who have had a little Java experience (in a professional environment of course) would be able to grasp most, if not all, of the concepts and examples laid out by the presenters.
Of course, nothing is perfect. The short length of the individual videos is downright annoying. Some of them are as shorts as three minutes long and you have to manually click to load up the next video in the web player. There is no reason for this. Oreilly of all organizations should be able to either cut multiple chapters into longer videos or enable autoplay on their player. Still, it is hard to fault the presenters for the presentations platform’s failings.
Overall, I would recommend this series to any Java developer that is thinking of taking a step or sto toward the Ruby on Rails side of life or to anyone who has heard of Grails and is curious as to what the hype is about. This series is not appropriate for students or hobbyists.
