Grails is a web application framework that uses Groovy and Java. The framework is oriented around high-productivity application development, and uses common Java technologies such as Hibernate and Spring.
Grails is a coding-by-convention framework that leverages well-established Java frameworks (Spring, Hibernate) to allow programmers to quickly develop web applications. It touts features such as a zero-XML configuration and a typical web-application MVC architecture.
Along with its core, Grails has a plugin architecture and library that can provide developers with common web application features like Security and dynamic UI tools.
Grails 2.3 adds (Not an exhaustive list):
- Improved Dependency Management
- Data Binder
- Binding Request Body To Command Objects
- Domain Classes As Command Objects
- Forked Execution
- Test Runner Daemon
- Server-Side REST Improvements
- New Scaffolding 2.0 Plugin
- URL Mappings May Specify A Redirect
- Async support
- Encoding / Escaping Improvements
- Hibernate 3 and 4 support
- Controller Exception Handling
- Namespaced Controllers
More information:
- Grails 2.3 - What's new
- Grails Home
- Grails Plugin Library
- Grails Reference Documentation
- Wikipedia on Grails
- SpringSource
See grails for more information.