Practical writing on Java, Spring, AI, and the craft of software engineering.
If you're building with Java and Spring (or trying to figure out where AI fits into your development workflow) you're in the right place. I write practical, beginner-friendly deep dives on Spring Boot, Spring AI, and software engineering fundamentals, collected here in chronological order.
Filtering by tag: Java
Building a Spring Initializr Terminal UI with Java
How I built a terminal user interface for the Spring Initializr using Tambu UI, a new Java TUI framework, and GraalVM native images to streamline my development workflow.
I Tried OpenAI's New Codex Agent. Here are my First Impressions (It's Really Good)
OpenAI released Codex, a new GUI for their coding agent. I put it to the test by building a vending machine CLI application in Java 25 with Maven, JUnit 6, and JSpecify null safety annotations.
The Ralph Loop: Automate AI Coding Tasks in Java
The Ralph Loop is a bash script that runs your AI coding agent with a fresh context every iteration. Here's how it works and how I used it to build a Java CLI.
Building a Spring Boot 4 REST API the Fast Way
Learn how to build a REST API with Spring Boot 4 in minutes. This tutorial shows you how to create CRUD endpoints using Java records and the @RestController annotation.
Spring Boot 4 Modularization: Fix Missing Auto-Configuration
Spring Boot 4 broke your auto-configuration? Learn which modular starters you now need—Flyway, H2, and the test starters behind @AutoConfigureMockMvc.
Spring JMS Client: A Complete Guide to JmsClient in Spring Boot 4
Master the Spring JMS Client with this complete Spring Boot 4 JmsClient tutorial. Learn when to choose JMS over Kafka, configure message conversion, and send messages using Spring's fluent API.
Spring Boot 4: Everything You Need to Know (4.0 and 4.1)
Everything new in Spring Boot 4 and 4.1, from null safety and HTTP interfaces to modularization and gRPC, plus the upgrade path from Spring Boot 3.
Native Retry Support in Spring Boot 4: No External Dependencies Required
Spring Boot 4 includes native retry support with @Retryable, RetryTemplate, and @ConcurrencyLimit. Learn how to add resilience without the spring-retry dependency.
Stop NullPointerExceptions Before Production with Spring Boot 4's Null Safety
Discover how Spring Boot 4 and JSpecify annotations catch NullPointerExceptions at compile-time instead of runtime. Learn to implement @NullMarked and @Nullable for bulletproof Java code with practical examples.