Acknowledgments

This book is the culmination of the effort of a lot of people, without whom we would not have been able to accomplish its publication. We would like to begin by thanking Jason Gilmore for bringing this project to us and being our original managing editor. We really need to express our appreciation to our project manager, Kylie Johnston, for ultimately organizing the project to ensure we got the book done in a timely and organized manner. Thanks to our editorial director and associate publisher, Dominic Shakeshaft, for removing barriers. Thanks to our copy editors, Nicole Abramowitz and Marilyn Smith, for making our writing readable. Thanks to other Apress staff, including Steve Anglin, Laura Cheu, Stephanie Parker, and, of course, Gary Cornell.

It is important that a technical book be accurate, so we would like to thank our formal technical reviewers, Guillaume Laforge and Harshad Oak. We would also like to thank those who read the book and provided feedback during various stages of the book; thanks to Jeff Bailey, Matt Montgomery, and Stephen Thompson.

We would like to thank all those who have contributed to the Groovy and Grails projects, especially Graeme Rocher, Guillaume Laforge, and G2One. We would also like to thank other Groovy and Grails community contributors, including James Williams for SwingXBuilder, Andres Almiray for JideBuilder and Graphics Builder, and Marcos Fábio Pereira for the JasperGrails plug-in. They have created some great stuff and should be proud of themselves. Thanks to Sven Haiges and Glen Smith for their informative Grails podcast. Also, thanks to Dave Booth and JetBrains for providing us with licenses for IntelliJ IDEA, the best Groovy and Grails IDE.

I would like to personally thank my wife, Sue, and son, Blake, for being understanding and supportive through this long process. I would like to thank all those who have contributed to my personal and professional development over the years: David Bailey, Jim Shingler, Joseph Nusairat, Neal Ford, Brian Sam-Bodden, Steve Swing, Brian Campbell, Mike Rozlog, Geoff Goetz, Bob Myers, Ken Faw, Chris Nicholas, Rick Burchfield, Kevin Smith, Floyd Carver, Lee Hall, Seth Flory, David Lucas, BJ Allmon, Linc Kroeger, Doug Mair, Akin Oladoye, Tom Pugh, Drew Robbins, Angelo Serra, Hakeem Shittu, and Alex Terrazas. I'd also like to thank Jay Zimmerman, Andrew Glover, Dave Thomas, Venkat Subramaniam, Scott Davis, Ted Neward, and the other great speakers and influencers on the "No Fluff Just Stuff" tour.

Chris

Writing a book has been one of the most daunting tasks of my adult life. It is hard to write a book while still going to work and maintaining some semblance of a life. I thought writing with multiple authors would make it easier; however, it just gives more expectations to live up to. I'd like to first thank my coauthors for writing with me, and most importantly, for writing the chapters I didn't want to write. In fairness, I believe the way we divided up the chapters worked out well, because we were each able to focus on the areas we had the most passion about.

I'd also like to thank my business partner, Brian Sam-Bodden, for pushing me week after week and inspiring me to be a better developer.

I write these books in the hope that people will actually use the new technology we write about. For people to do that, companies need strong leaders who are willing to try something new. I'd like to thank those I have had the pleasure to work for who saw the power that new technologies bring—people like Chris Nicholas, Alberto Avila, Javier Sol, and Scott Carter, whose team I still keep running into at national conferences.

Finally, I'd like to thank my friends for their personal support and words of encouragement. Thank you Marie Wong, Joe O'Brien, Rob Stevenson, and all my tweets on twitter.

Joseph

I would personally like to thank my wife, Wendy, and son, Tyler, for their support and patience through the writing of the book and in our journey together through life. I would like to thank the many people who have contributed to my personal and professional growth: Wendy Shingler, James L. Shingler Sr., Linda Shingler, George Ramsayer, Tom Posival, Chris Judd, Rick Burchfield, David Lucas, Chris Nicholas, Tim Resch, Kevin Smith, Neal Ford, Seth Flory, Frank Neugebauer, David Duhl, Nate Beyene, Teresa Whitt, Jay Johnson, Gerry Wright, and the many other people who have touched my life.

Jim