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
>> Optional in Java SE 8
An useful guide to using the new Optional class the way it was meant to when it was introduced into the language. Like everything else, there's a good way to use it, and then there's all the other ways.
>> Better nulls in Java 10?
JDK 10 is still a long ways away – so now is the time for thought experiments. This is one of those – useful in the fact that it makes it clear that the semantics of null in Java can definitely be improved and should be.
>> 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Java
Cool list of corner cases and surprises in Java – an interesting read even if you've been doing Java for years.
>> On Java Generics and Erasure
An quick educational foray into how type erasure works in Java.
>> Beyond Thread Pools: Java Concurrency is Not as Bad as You Think
A very high level plotting of the Java Concurrency ecosystem – some of the available solutions and paradigms to get you started and knowing your options.
>> Hibernate collections optimistic locking
Another deep dive into Hibernate – this time showing how important the modeling of parent-child associations is for the way you're able to concurrently and reliably access data.
And a few other Releases and Announcements that I'm excited about or are just noteworthy in the broader Java ecosystem:
Elasticsearch 1.4.0 and 1.3.5 released
Elasticsearch Shield: You Know, For Security (Coming Soon)
IntelliJ IDEA 14 is Released!
2. Spring
>> Log Management for Spring Boot Applications with Logstash, Elasticsearch and Kibana
ELK is a beautiful thing. I've been using it for a while now and it rocks.
>> Spring Caching abstraction and Google Guava Cache
It makes a lot of sense to use the Guava Cache to power the caching in a Spring app. This is how.
>> A quality @Qualifier
I've mainly used @Qualifier as an interview question, but from time to time it can turn a tricky situation into an elegant solution. And, as Josh points out – it's been doing it for years.
>> Spring from the Trenches: Resetting Auto Increment Columns Before Each Test Method
An interesting deep-dive into working with a large suite of integration tests – how to make sure your results are correct and reproducible, and that your tests are idempotent.
Finally – a few cool Releases and Webinars from Spring:
>> Spring Data Evans SR1 released
>> Spring Cloud 1.0.0.M2 Available Now
>> Webinar Replay: Building “Bootful” UIs with Spring Boot and Vaadin
>> Webinar Replay: Content-enabled Web and Mobile Applications with Spring, Groovy and Crafter
3. Technical and Musings
>> An Empty Line is a Code Smell
“A method should do one thing”. It took a long time until I really internalized this fact and started actively looking for it in my own design.
And so I read this piece in that context, with a focus on improving my own design. That's how I'm sharing it here as well.
>> How to Get Your Company to Stop Killing Cats
We all have our war stories. But getting a group of people to change is one hell of a thing – that's why I find it so very cool when it actually works out for the better.
Doesn't happen often though.
>> Collection Pipeline
A very well put together piece on the power and the breadth collection pipelining operations. Makes me want to do some Clojure today.
4. Comics
And now for the part that you're actually reading my weekly review – XKCD:
>> Star Ratings
>> goto
>> Cemetery
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.