A commonly used spell in the Harry Potter books is “Stupefy”. When a wizard says the incantation, a jet of red light flies out of the tip of the magic wand and if it hits the target, the recipient gets stunned and knocked out of his senses. I am unsure of the date and time when it happened but sometime early in this century, I am sure that not “Stupefy” but a “Stupidify” spell was fired through TV screens across India. The spell dulled the senses of all who were hit and since then all those stupidified have been running on minimal grey cell usage. One of the obvious effects of the Stupidify spell is a complete failure at keeping ones brains switched on while in front of a TV screen. I believe that even I am regularly under the influence of the spell. So in this brief interval when I do not feel all that stupidified, I am writing to let the world know of this sinister spell.

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Check out my new article on OTN about building a Grails web application using the Oracle JDeveloper IDE.

Excerpt-
Following the Ruby on Rails (RoR) wave, most software developers have considered, if not tried out, either ROR or some other framework that promises to deliver ROR features. The Grails framework also rode the Rails wave to popularity but is now shaping into a powerful framework in its own right. Grails uses the Groovy
programming language; Groovy syntax is similar to Java’s, but it also adopts some concepts from other languages. Like Java, Groovy generates bytecodes and runs on the Java platform, so it has the power of Java but also adds a few niceties and simplifications.

In this article you will get an introduction to developing Grails applications using Oracle JDeveloper as your IDE. You will also get an overview of Groovy concepts as you go about developing your Grails application.

Visit - http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/oak-grails.html

Related -
* Groovy bridges the scripting and the enterprise Java worlds (Interview with Groovy Lead)
* Grails is a breath of fresh air for Java developers (Interview with Grails Lead)

A new Pepsi ad has coined the phrase ‘Youngistan’ by combining Young & Hindustan. The actor in the ad claims to be an alien from the planet Youngistan. However is Youngistan really a planet in outer space or is India and Youngistan one and the same? I say this as I can’t help but note that India is being totally customized for the young, rich and the healthy. I certainly don’t have anything against the Youngistanization of society. The young definitely should enjoy the prosperity and the growing disposable incomes of new India, but not by steadily ignoring other segments of society.
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