AST Transformations in Groovy by Kirsten Schwark

Join us for our first JUG meeting of 2013!

Kirsten Schwark (s/w developer for iDashboards, author of GroovyMag) will be giving us a talk on AST Transformations in Groovy

Talk Details:

Groovy is a dynamic language that runs on the JVM. The language syntax is very accessible to Java developers because the approach of the language developers was essentially to make a ‘better’ Java. At the end of the day though, Groovy is Java. Because of this, the Groovy interpreter can execute virtually any Java code. The converse is true as well; Groovy code can be compiled and called from Java code.

This talk will focus on Groovy AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) transformations. AST transformations are one of Groovy’s ‘extension’ features that enable a developer to essentially extend the Groovy language by directly modifying the AST that the Groovy compiler creates from the Groovy source code before generating Java bytecode for execution on the JVM. AST transformations are often referred to as ‘compiler hooks’ because the developer ‘hooks’ into the compilation process before the executable Java bytecode is generated. AST transformations are also said to support ‘compile-time metaprogramming’ because they allow the developer to add functionality to their existing program constructs at compile time.

About the Speaker:

Kirsten Schwark is a software developer for iDashboards (http://www.idashboards.com (http://www.idashboards.com/)), a leading provider of business intelligence dashboard software. She is the author of the GroovyMag (http://groovymag.com (http://groovymag.com/)) ‘Groovy under the Hood’ series that explores the Groovy programming language from the perspective of a Java developer. With over 16 years of software development experience she is an active supporter of the local development community. She enjoys programming language theory and has a strong appreciation for the elegance and beauty of the Groovy programming language.

Parking Information:

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