A Concise Introduction and Overview of Spring ROO

The book “Getting Started with Roo” is just over 50 pages long and provides a brief and high-level introduction to using Spring ROO.

This book is just over 50 pages long and provides a brief and high-level introduction to using Spring ROO.

First, the use of Spring Roo is explained step-by-step using an example project with the SpringSource Tool Suite (STS). However, the authors keep it quite brief, explaining only the essentials before moving quickly to database re-engineering and from there to graph-based databases with Spring Data Graph and Neo4J. In the chapter on the web, the interaction between Spring Roo, Spring MVC, and WebFlow is briefly explained. Following that, GWT and Vaadin are introduced, and finally, there are short sections on logging, security, and testing before the book concludes.

Conclusion: Although the book only provides an initial introduction, it offers a fairly broad overview of the Spring ecosystem. As an initial entry point into Spring Roo, it is excellently suited, provided you have prior knowledge in web or enterprise application development. I recommend downloading and taking a look at the PDF version from SpringSource first, and then deciding whether purchasing the book—which is quite expensive given its length—is worth it.

Josh Long, Steve Mayzak
Getting Started with Roo
O’Reilly
2011