At the very beginning of 2014 I decided to start better documenting my reading habits and sharing them here with all of you.

The point is two fold – by curating and documenting, my reading has become more purposeful and diverse. Also – I believe that curation of good content brings a lot of value, helps people explore and allows the best stuff to raise to the top.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy these as we move in the latter half of 2014.

Here we go…

1. Java

>> Predicting the next Math.random() in Java

This was quite an interesting read about the inner workings of Java Random.

>> Garbage Collectors – Serial vs. Parallel vs. CMS vs. G1 (and what’s new in Java 8)

A quick guide to the various implementations of garbage collectors in the JDK – nice high level overview.

2. Spring

>> Spring Framework 4.1 GA is here!

The big news this week is of course that Spring 4.1 is out. I’m mostly excited about the new static resource resolution and the new isolation level support in a Hibernate/JPA setup.

>> Preview Spring Security WebSocket Support

The WebSocket support in Spring is growing and maturing quite nicely. I might have the chance to use it for some production code soon on a client project – so better integration with Spring Security is a very nice step forward.

And of course Spring is tirelessly putting out new releases and webinars, besides the 4.1 release:

3. Technical and Musings

>> Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize

Another pragmatic piece that goes into two different ways of thinking. If you’re doing consulting work, this should be familiar – having a goal and working towards it at all times versus simply working. Added points if that is a business goal or a learning goal.

>> Test Time

A pragmatic outlook on picking your testing tools inteligently – from Uncle Bob. Having a solid test suite is no good if it misses the point of providing very short feedback loops.

>> Standard Flavored Markdown

The Markdown spec is out – this is forward movement in leaps and bounds, and it’s exciting even if you’re not explicitly working on markdown. Also, along with an interesting public apology, it’s now called Common Markdown.

>> The Wolf

This is a quick read, but an impactful and interesting one to say the least. Can’t quite put my finger on why that is – but it’s there.

4. Comics

Let’s finish this strong with XKCD – and end the week with a chuckle:

>> ( (here’s some more text for you to click on)

>> Ultimate Game

>> Ballmer Peak

Have a great weekend and let me know down in the comments if you’re enjoying the new “Comics” section. I am having fun shitfing through my bookmarks and putting it out.

Baeldung Pro – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
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Once the early-adopter seats are all used, the price will go up and stay at $33/year.

eBook – HTTP Client – NPI EA (cat=HTTP Client-Side)
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The Apache HTTP Client is a very robust library, suitable for both simple and advanced use cases when testing HTTP endpoints. Check out our guide covering basic request and response handling, as well as security, cookies, timeouts, and more:

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eBook – Java Concurrency – NPI EA (cat=Java Concurrency)
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eBook – Java Streams – NPI EA (cat=Java Streams)
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Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

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To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:

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Course – LS – NPI EA (cat=REST)

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Get started with Spring Boot and with core Spring, through the Learn Spring course:

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Partner – Moderne – NPI EA (tag=Refactoring)
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