In our row of GR8 speakers at the conference, we have reached Jim Shingler:

GR8 Conf:
Tell us more about you, your job, and how you got into Groovy, Grails and Griffon

Jim:

I recently joined Big Lots (BIG), www.biglots.com, in Columbus, Ohio, USA, as Chief Technical Architect.  Big Lots is an Open Source friendly company, this works well for me given that I am an OS advocate.

I have watched the Open Source Space for years to see something like Groovy, Grails, and Griffon (G3).  About 2-2.5 years ago, I discovered Grails and this cool Dynamic Language named Groovy.  I experimented and wrote some sample applications and shared my excitement with one of my Co-Authors, Chris Judd (http://juddsolutions.blogspot.com).  As Luck would have it, Apress approached us to write “Beginning Groovy and Grails” (http://BeginningGroovyAndGrails.com).    The last chapter of the book was about alternative clients.  This led me to SwingBuilder.  I was very impressed.  I found that if you took a little care with how you organized your code (Convention), writing Swing didn’t have to hurt.  Then came Griffon (http://griffon.codehaus.org).  WOW!  Grails for Desktop development.  Groovy, Grails, and Griffon, are maturing fast, and the community is vibrant.

Jim:

Well, in 2 Hours, I am going to introduce as much Griffon as possible.  And it will still only be a taste of what is possible.  We will cover: what is Griffon, a little history, explore the MVC Triad through an application, look at Builders, actions, and threading to teach the Griffon to count.  With that basic introduction, I will then build a Griffon Twitter Clone Client that leverages the Grails Twitter Clone that Graeme build earlier in the conference. 

There is a great deal information to cover.  The goal is that by the end of the presentation that the audience will under what Griffon is and be comfortable enough to give it a try.

If things go as well as I suspect they will, a bad case of insomnia.  They will be so excited by the possibilities that they won’t be able to sleep.  I know I am really looking forward to the conference.

GR8 Conf:
We're looking forward to it as well. Thank you Jim, for sharing with us. See you soon.

Jim:

You're welcome. I'm exited to meeting you all in Copenhagen.