Yes, we're now running our Black Friday Sale. All Access and Pro are 33% off until 2nd December, 2025:
Java Web Weekly, Issue 108
Last updated: September 23, 2022
Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.
Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.
With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.
Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.
Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.
Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.
With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.
Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.
Mocking is an essential part of unit testing, and the Mockito library makes it easy to write clean and intuitive unit tests for your Java code.
Get started with mocking and improve your application tests using our Mockito guide:
Spring 5 added support for reactive programming with the Spring WebFlux module, which has been improved upon ever since. Get started with the Reactor project basics and reactive programming in Spring Boot:
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.
But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.
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:
Explore Spring Boot 3 and Spring 6 in-depth through building a full REST API with the framework:
Yes, Spring Security can be complex, from the more advanced functionality within the Core to the deep OAuth support in the framework.
I built the security material as two full courses - Core and OAuth, to get practical with these more complex scenarios. We explore when and how to use each feature and code through it on the backing project.
You can explore the course here:
Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.
Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.
With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.
Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.
Spring Data JPA is a great way to handle the complexity of JPA with the powerful simplicity of Spring Boot.
Get started with Spring Data JPA through the guided reference course:
Refactor Java code safely — and automatically — with OpenRewrite.
Refactoring big codebases by hand is slow, risky, and easy to put off. That’s where OpenRewrite comes in. The open-source framework for large-scale, automated code transformations helps teams modernize safely and consistently.
Each month, the creators and maintainers of OpenRewrite at Moderne run live, hands-on training sessions — one for newcomers and one for experienced users. You’ll see how recipes work, how to apply them across projects, and how to modernize code with confidence.
Join the next session, bring your questions, and learn how to automate the kind of work that usually eats your sprint time.
Yes, we're now running our Black Friday Sale. All Access and Pro are 33% off until 2nd December, 2025:
At the very beginning of last year, I decided to track my reading habits and share the best stuff here, on Baeldung. Haven’t missed a review since.
Here we go…
1. Spring and Java
>> Programming with modularity and Project Jigsaw. A Tutorial Using the Latest Early Access Build [infoq.com]
A solid and quite exhaustive writeup about the new modularity work coming to Java 9.
>> Spring Batch Tutorial: Introduction [petrikainulainen.net]
A quick, solid intro to what Spring Batch is and what it’s super useful for.
>> How does JPA and Hibernate define the AUTO flush mode [vladmihalcea.com]
Very cool and to the point guide to how flushing – and in particular auto-flushing – behaves differently between Hibernate and JPA.
>> Using Exceptions to Write Robust Software for Stable Production [codecentric.de]
A high level writeup about using exception to control execution flow and actually having an disciplined approach to how logging is done and how these exceptions flow through the system.
>> Use JUnit’s expected exceptions sparingly [jooq.org]
An look at using annotations for flow control. And an entertaining peek into Lukas’ “love” for Java annotations.
>> Redefining java.lang.System With Byte Buddy [tersesystems.com]
A super cool look into JVM level security.
>> Introduction to CompletableFutures [kennethjorgensen.com]
A straightforward introduction to using the new(ish) CompletableFuture in Java 8.
Also worth reading:
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>> Spring Cloud with Turbine [java-allandsundry.com]
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>> Java 9 Jigsaw – A Missing Piece [codecentric.de]
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>> Binaural Beats with Java [devdungeon.com]
Webinars and presentations:
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>> Groovy: The Awesome Parts [infoq.com]
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>> Richer Data History with Event Sourcing [infoq.com]
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>> Gpars: Concurrency in Java & Groovy [infoq.com]
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>> Seriously, Use Groovy Now [infoq.com]
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>> Introduction to Reactive Programming [infoq.com]
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>> Building Highly Scalable Spring Applications with In-memory Distributed Data Grids [infoq.com]
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>> Get the Most out of Testing with Spring 4.2 [spring.io]
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>> Webinar: What’s new in Spring Data [spring.io]
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>> Webinar: Creating a PageRank Analytics Platform Using Spring Boot Microservices [spring.io]
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>> Video: Quickly Spin Up Applications on Cloud Foundry’s Spring Boot [thenewstack.io]
Time to upgrade:
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>> 8u72 Update Release Notes [oracle.com]
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>> Spring Boot 1.3.2 released [spring.io]
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>> IntelliJ IDEA 15.0.3 Update is Available [jetbrains.com]
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>> Hibernate Validator 5.3.0.Alpha1 is out [in.relation.to]
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>> Pivotal Academy Launches Updated Spring Classes [spring.io]
2. Technical
>> Feature Toggles [martinfowler.com] and >> Categories of toggles [martinfowler.com]
The feature toggle is such a powerful technique done right. It can save you oh-so much merging time, testing work and just general sanity that it’s not even funny.
This article will be one to follow (because it’s getting published in installments) and come back to.
>> How a Smell in the Tests Points to a Risk in the Design [thecodewhisperer.com]
As always, a solid deep dive into the nuances of testing and maintainable code, and as always – a good read.
Also worth reading:
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>> AWS Webinars for January, 2016 [aws.amazon.com]
3. Musings
>> Enough with the IoT Naysaying Already [daedtech.com]
It’s sometimes easier to be negative about new technology that you don’t fully understand. But after being wrong a few times, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate that approach.
On a personal note – I didn’t get Twitter in the early years and it really took a while until I came around, so now I tend to twink twice before making any decision on something new (Spapchat?).
>> What To Avoid When Doing Code Reviews [daedtech.com]
Very insightful thoughts on doing code review in a way that is genuinely helpful and helps the developer receiving that feedback grow. Which is very hard to do, but also very worthwhile to strive for.
>> Microservices Use Cases [techblog.bozho.net]
The “microservice craze of 2015” (as it will be referred to by historians) is dissipating as sobering, experience-anchored tales are being published.
Here are some valid usecases for microservices. On a personal note, I do think that there are a good few more valid usecases where it’s worth paying the complexity cost.
But generally speaking, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of – don’t jump into microservices because you think it would be cool, as that rarely works out.
Also worth reading:
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>> The impact of “Have I been pwned” on the data breach marketplace [troyhunt.com]
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>> How I got a visa normally reserved for nobel laureates [swizec.com]
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>> A Players Don’t Hire A Players — They Partner with A Players [daedtech.com]
4. Comics
And my favorite Dilberts of the week:
>> You did a good job on the high notes [dilbert.com]
>> My phone took care of it [dilbert.com]
>> A newly discovered stone age tribe that has never used skype [dilbert.com]
5. Pick of the Week
>> What’s in a Story? [dannorth.net]
