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

>> Understanding Spring Web Application Architecture: The Classic Way

The start of a new series from Petri – on system architecture. This piece is going over the classical approach to architecting a system.

>> Hibernate application-level repeatable reads

Another writeup in the Hibernate Master Class series – this one is about operations with repeatable read isolation semantics.

If you’re doing Hibernate or writing any kind of data to a relational database, it’s critical you understand these core concepts.

>> Let’s Stream a Map in Java 8 with jOOλ

Quick and to the point – streaming a Map in Java 8 should be easier, and now it is.

2. Spring

>> See how to build, test, secure, and add hypermedia with this new tutorial, “Building REST Services with Spring”

That title says it all, doesn’t it?

>> Introducing Spring Sync

An introduction to what might be an important piece of the Spring ecosystem – support for PATCH operations (inspired from the Json Patch spec).

I can see how – for some usecases – this might be a big deal in terms of client-server communication efficiency.

3. Technical and Musings

>> The DSL Jungle

Configuration tips from the actual trenches – I like this piece a lot because it’s super pragmatic. How often does someone say – look, XML is actually good in some cases, don’t just discard it out of hand.

>> Elasticsearch Testing and QA: Increasing Coverage by Randomizing Test Runs

This kind of testing tactic can make such a difference in pretty much any non-trivial system. I need to bring in more of this kind of randomized input in my tests – that’s for sure.

>> SacrificialArchitecture

The architecture of a system natural moves forward. Pragmatically replacing it with a new architecture is in no way a failure, but instead an event that we need to be aware of and plan for intelligently. Very engaging read.

>> Your Community Door

Building a community is no easy task – not by a long-shot. Should you be strict with bad behavior or not? Are there mute and ignore options in the system – and are these even a good idea?

I think it takes a lot of experience (and probably a lot of mistakes) to craft the kind of community that remains healthy in the long run, but it’s a very interesting problem to have.

>> Agile: False Hope and Real Promise

Here’s a piece about Agile that does its best not to make judgment calls or spew out trivialities.

4. Comics

Finally – some XKCD quirkiness in comic form:

>> Command Line Fu

>> Restraining Order

>> Conspiracy Theories

5. Pick of the Week

I recently introduced the “Pick of the Week” section here in my “Weekly Review”. The interesting part is that it’s entirely exclusive to my email list subscribers.

So – if you came to this article from my email list, you have the pick already – hope you enjoyed it. If not – feel free to subscribe and you’ll get the next one.