13. Tips and tricks

The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.

—Edsger Dijkstra

Learning language features and library APIs is one thing; using a language for your everyday programming tasks has its own challenges. As the saying goes, “In theory, practice and theory are one and the same. In practice, they’re not.” This chapter attempts to bridge the gap, giving some insight into what it’s like to use Groovy for real, and (we hope) steering you clear of some of the potholes others (including us) have run into.