Groovy and Grails magazine – any interest?
August 5, 2008
I’ve been cautiously exploring the idea of a Groovy and Grails magazine. I’ve got some interest from some well-known community members about writing articles, and I’ve got some leads on advertisers. The last missing piece of the equation is readers. Are you interested in a Groovy and Grails monthly magazine? I’m envisioning this as PDF to start with, with an eventual print component if the demand is there.
Why a monthly magazine? Specifically in the tech industry, it seems we don’t quite have enough time to digest things before the next big thing is arriving, and print is “out of date” before it gets printed. With breaking news stuff, I think that’s probably true. But with programming, there’s always more to it than first meets the eye.
There’s a lot of content out there in blogs, but the quality and depth just aren’t always sufficient to ge the point across. Books are great, but suffer greatly from the “out of date” issue I just mentioned. I just got a new Grails book a few days ago and it’s still referencing Grails 0.6 (not as gospel, but it was obviously the ‘current’ version when some or much of the book was written). In my mind, a well done magazine fills the void between blogs and books, balancing the depth and timeliness issues. The php|architect magazine series is a good example of this, and the MySQL magazine quarterly is another one. Both are chock full of good, useful content for people who need to dig deep in to issues but still stay abreast of current trends.
In any event, if you’re interested in learning more, contact me or post a comment here. You can also register your interest (let me know how many of you would be interested in a regular magazine effort) by going to http://groovymag.com and entering your email address (no you won’t get spammed or sold to!)
This isn’t quite a ‘done deal’ yet, but I’d like to know what the community interest in such a project is at this stage as I do more preparation and planning.
Thanks!
Posted in 
Entrepreneur, developer, writer, podcaster, teacher, ex-bassist.
August 6th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I’m surprised there is no interest so far.
August 6th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
The turnout so far has been a bit on the light side, but the comments from people signing up at http://groovymag.com are still encouraging. For the people I’ve met in person (a couple so far) the reaction was very positive. No one has replied here yet, but I’ve had several signups at the groovymag.com website.
Post about it on your blog and make an issue of it wherever you can. Spread the word!
August 7th, 2008 at 12:32 am
I’d be very much interested in such a magazine ( even to the point of trying to help/write articles
). A topic that I’d like to see covered (well, better or more thoroughly/systematically/formally covered than what I’ve seen) is related to how you would formulate/use/think of design patterns and core software development/design practices and principles in an as-dynamic-style-as-possible and how do you reconcile static and dynamic ways of Groovy, for example.
I mean, I just can stand when I see something written in Groovy like:
public interface SomeIf {…}
or
public void/String foo(List aList) {…}
Then why use Groovy and not Java, if you want the safety of static typing? Simpler syntax? maybe that’s the way to go and a reason good enough…
The only reason why I’d like/want to use static typing in Groovy is to conform to already defined Java interfaces (hence to integrate with existing Java systems) and Java conventions (like the Object’s public String toString() {} method, etc.)
Thanks a lot! Good luck! Should I ever hear of this kicking off or be notified explicitly, I’d like to help, as possible.
Regards, Tavi
(Romania)
August 7th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Thanks for the support Tavi.
“Then why use Groovy and not Java, if you want the safety of static typing? Simpler syntax? maybe that’s the way to go and a reason good enough…”
I can’t speak for others, but I generally don’t want the ’safety’ of static typing. Most of the development that I’ve done over the years has been in the Perl/PHP world, and I can recall very few times when I’ve ever had projects have problems because I tried to add “a” with 7, for example, or that I passed an array to a function expecting a number.
I may have misunderstood what you were saying – you’re bringing up the idea that people need to learn to use Groovy in a more ‘groovy’ way, right? They need to think more dynamic in the first place, right? There’s definitely a lot of potential for great productivity in that arena, but I think it’s a huge battle getting lifelong Java devs to think ‘out of the box’ so to speak. The people I’ve known take to Groovy have tended to be capable in multiple languages to start with. Interestingly, the marketing for Groovy seems targetted primarily at Java shops first, which may not be devs who will get the most out of Groovy’s dynamicness.
Thanks for the comment!
August 7th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Hi,
What a great idea! Unfortunately the website is now unavailable so I can not register.
I would like to try to write some articles or translate the magazine into Polish.
Regards,
Stan
August 7th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Sorry that you’re having problems. I can hit the website from this end. If it’s still down later, let me know again. Thanks.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:38 am
It is OK now
Maybe it was only a temporary problem.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the success of this magazine!
August 7th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I personally would rather listen to the Grails podcast than read a magazine – how about joining forces and contributing content to the podcast?
cheers
Lee
August 8th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Michael,
I think this is a great idea. Not only would it be very helpful to developers trying to improve their craft but it would also be great exposure for Groovy and Grails. If you get this going, I would be happy to do what I can to help get the word out.
I have to respectfully disagree with Lee Butts(very respectfully because I so appreciate his contributions to the community
There are some things that just can’t be done justice in audio. Code examples, screen shots, etc. However I do agree with Lee that it would be good for you to get in touch with Sven and Glen there could be some real synergy there. (grailspodcast@gmail.com)
All the best on this endeavor and I’ll be watching on Twitter for updates.
Dave
August 8th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I agree with Dave. Though Glen and Sven are menschen, there’s a level of depth that can be provided by a prepared article vs a brief discussion on a podcast(albeit topical and insightful).
August 9th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Maybe GroovyMag and the IMHO very good Grails Podcast should sync their efforts. Some prefer the spoken word, others like more paper based “food”. But the researching and redactional work could be minimized.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
rags are finding it hard to survive. what happened to all those java rags? c++ lusers journal died a year or so ago. my dr. frobbs is getting kinda thin these days.
i suppose you might survive if you were clever enough about the content. i would pay for a subscription.
maybe a quarterly journal type of thing?
thanks
August 11th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Thanks a lot for this idea.
Podcast and mag both r different ,liking depends person to person.
personally, i like papers .I wud happy to pay for subscription if it give me stuff to tackle real time problems. it will be great if there is a corner for “ask expert” in the mag.
Thanks
August 11th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Michael, talking from the “business of publishing” angle here, why would you want to launch a niche technical magazine in print format these days? Like Ray above I’d worry about the odds.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:08 am
I guess the whole “PDF” aspect here has really not been pushed enough. That’s what I was thinking of first. If there’s demand (which I’m not sure there’s enough to support it) for print, that may be on the cards.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
YES!!!!!!
I’d be very interested.
Sign me up
October 14th, 2008 at 8:40 am
I love the idea. We do a lot with grails and would like to read more about it and also have the opportunity to present our projects.