What You Should Know Now — and What's Next

What You Should Know Now

• Variables, def and types, BigDecimal math, strings and GStrings
• Groovy Truth, the powerful switch, loops, and ranges
• Lists, maps, and the GDK collection methods
• Methods and closures — currying, composition, delegates, and memoization
• Classes, properties, inheritance, interfaces, traits, enums, and records
• AST transformations such as @Canonical, @Immutable, and @Builder
• Files, regular expressions, JSON, XML, YAML, and builders
• Optional typing, @TypeChecked, and @CompileStatic
• Runtime and compile-time metaprogramming, and building DSLs
• Embedding Groovy safely, concurrency, and command-line automation
• Gradle build scripts, Jenkins pipelines, Spock tests, Grails, and Micronaut

What Should You Learn Next?

• Java — Java is Groovy's foundation; knowing the JDK and the JVM in depth makes you better at Groovy too.
• Kotlin — Kotlin is the other expressive JVM language, with Gradle's Kotlin DSL and Android development.
• Scala — Scala for functional programming and big data on the JVM.
• Clojure — Clojure, a Lisp on the JVM, if the dynamic, data-oriented side of Groovy appealed to you.
• Bash — Bash for the shell steps that live inside every Jenkins pipeline.

Build Something

Pick something you already use — a build, a pipeline, or a chore you do by hand — and improve it with Groovy: a Gradle plugin, a shared pipeline library, a Spock test suite for a Java project, or an automation script. Share it, and read the Groovy in projects like Gradle and Spock to see how experienced developers use the language.