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At the very beginning of 2014 I decided to start to track my reading habits and share the best stuff here, on Baeldung.
Curating my reading has made it more purposeful and diverse – and I’m hopefully providing value to you as well by allowing the best content of the week to raise to the top.
Here we go…
1. Java and Spring
>> Java Doesn’t Suck – You’re Just Using it Wrong
Let’s put our best foot forward and start this weeks review with a must read. If you’re reading my reviews, you’re likely doing some work in Java – in which case, this piece will be highly useful.
Some of these points are obvious but I need to give a bit more through to the ones that aren’t.
>> New Java Version – it’s not JDK 1.9
I never thought I’d see the day, but it looks like it actually may be happening – Java’s going for semantic versioning. No more elvish 1.7.0_65-b20 (7u65) – but simple 7.6.15.
And since we’re on JDK related news, the main JDK 9 page was just updated with a few interesting tidbits. A few more JEPs as well as a proposal to drop the JSON API!
>> 15 Tools Java Developers Should Use After a Major Release
Whenever I come across a system running in production without monitoring or a good logging solution – and it happens more often than you’d imagine – I tend to fall back to a few of the solutions in this article.
ELK is my go to for logging, as for monitoring, I usually set up collectd + Graphite. It’s not pretty but it gets the job done. And of course Pingdom, or something like it – is a must.
>> A Simple Use-case Comparison of JVM Libraries for MongoDB
If you’re doing Mongo work on the JVM, go ahead and read this one – it’s useful and doesn’t waste your time.
I always find these high level comparisons useful – they give you the much needed context of someone who took the time to try out all of the options for themselves.
>> The Fatal Flaw of Finalizers and Phantoms
An in-depth read on why not to use finalizers in Java.
>> Latest Jackson integration improvements in Spring
I’m very excited about the new Jackson goodness in the very latest Spring releases – it looks like it’s going to allow a lot more flexibility in terms of output.
>> First Milestone of Spring Data Release Train Fowler Available
Spring Data needs no introduction – here’s what’s going to be available in the next release. Or – if you’re not going with it in production, what might already be available by using this Milestone. I’m going to try the new Elasticsearch release shortly.
>> Spring Tool Suite and Groovy/Grails Tool Suite 3.6.3 released
Step right up. Upgrade your IDE.
>> Avoid unwanted component scanning of Spring Configuration
If you have the problem of duplicate beans in your Spring context, you might not even be aware of it. Here’s a simple solution for the Spring Security configuration.
>> Spring request-level memoization
A cool technique to leverage caching as cross-cutting concern of your system and get repeatable reads at the request level with Spring.
>> Spring RestTemplate with a linked resource
Making the RestTemplate HAL aware – very cool indeed.
And finally, the webinar recordings that I have on my TODO list for this weekend:
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>> Building Reactive applications with Reactor and the Reactive Streams standa4d
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>> Spring Boot and Netflix OSS
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>> Security for Microservices with Spring and OAuth2
2. Technical and Musings
>> The Dominant Leader Fallacy
“Leadership is a matter of trust — not dominance.” The last sentence sums up this piece quite well – mosey over and give it a read if you resonate with that.
>> TDDaiymi vs. Naked Primitives
TDD-ing your way to good design is a learned skill that takes years of practice. I’m certainly not “there” yet, nor do I think there is a “There” really.
That being said – these Katas/Activities are a very useful kick in the read end. And the only way to start – unless your uber-disciplined – is doing them in a group setting, such as a code retreat – where you have no other choice.
>> Getting Started with Machine Learning
A conversational intro to machine learning, along with an actual example of how to build yourself a classifier (and why).
>> What is the Web?
You’ve been doing development on the web in some shape of form for years now, as have I. Is it still worth reading this article?
Yes it is!
>> Static Typing Is Not for Type Checking
A nuanced view on some of the advantages of statically-typed language. An interesting read.
>> Git 2.2.0 is out!
Nice overview of what’s new and useful in the 2.2 release of Git.
3. Comics
XKCD is my go to. Dilbert is a close second:
>> Anonymous Survey
>> Lie by omission?
>> A nun, a CEO and a Scientist a in a burning building
4. Pick of the Week
I recently introduced the “Pick of the Week” section here in my “Weekly Review”. If you’re already on my email list – you got the pick already – hope you enjoyed it.
If not – you can share the review and unlock it right here: