Roo is a productivity tool that allows for easy creation of Enterprise Java applications. It generates infrastructure code like entities, controllers, and services through simple shell commands. Roo uses AspectJ for automatic code generation and integrates with Spring technologies like dependency injection and MVC. It aims to help developers build RESTful services quickly without needing to write infrastructure code from scratch.

1. Rapid with Roo
Brownbag 9/13/2013
@MortenLileng

2. Me
• A rusty Java programmer, but … really like to get
my hands dirty
• Really like good code built on standards
• Limited time and desire to build infrastructure
code
Needed
• To build a RESTFul service in hours (off-hours)
• A tool that can help me with all infrastructure
code, without engineering trade-offs

3. What is Roo?
• Productivity tool
• Allows for easy creation of Enterprise Java
applications
• Runs alongside existing projects
• Detects changes made to files, adjusts itself as
necessary

4. What Roo is not
• Roo is not a runtime
• Roo is not an IDE plugin
• Roo is not an annotation processing library
• Java EE 6 annotations are not used
• Compatible with Java EE 5

5. Demo
roo from scratch
$ hint
$ persistence setup --provider HIBERNATE --database HYPERSONIC_IN_MEMORY
$ entity jpa --class ~.domain.Contact --testAutomatically
$ field string --fieldName firstName --notNull
$ field string --fieldName lastName --notNull
$ enum type --class ~.domain.Gender
$ enum constant --name FEMALE
$ enum constant --name MALE
$ field enum --fieldName gender --type ~.domain.Gender --class ~.domain.Contact
$ perform eclipse
$ controller all --package ~.merkle.roo.web
$ perform eclipse
$ perform clean package
Roo shell commands

6. Core Technology
• Spring Framework
• AspectJ

7. Roo and Spring
• Spring Framework is required by Roo
• Spring Aspects - using AspectJ definition language
• Configurable dependency injection
• Other Spring projects may be included
– Spring Security
– Spring Web Flow
– Maven
– Java Server Pages
• User decides which Spring components to
integrate

8. Roo and Aspects
• Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP)
framework
• Inter-Type Declaration (ITD)
• Automatic Code Generation
– Interfaces
– Methods
– Fields

9. Why use Roo?
• Higher Productivity
• Compatibility with existing projects
• Auto-configuration available:
– Java Persistence API (JPA)
– Database backend
– Dependency injection
• Integration with existing technologies
– Spring MVC layer
– Google Web Toolkit
– HTML 5 standard
• Easy to pull out – no dependency at a later point

10. Productivity
• Code generated in separate files
• Independent from project
• ITDs are referenced automatically
• Incremental approach to application-building
• Technologies and frameworks automatically
added on-demand

11. Compatibility
• Compatible with Java EE 5
• SpringSource certified architecture
• Automatic maintenance and updates of
XML, JSP files

12. Convenience
• Runs in background
• Simple command-line interface
• Easy to add or remove
• Fail-safe, keeps track of changes made to
filesystem

13. References
• FX Service checked into SVN
• http://www.springsource.org/spring-
roo#documentation
• http://www.eclipse.org/aspectj/
• http://www.springsource.org/documentation
• Slide content: Aleksey Bukin