A Java geek

2022 in retrospective

2022 is over, and not a moment too soon. I’ll never forget it: some of my friends had to flee their own country; others are fighting for their freedom as I write this post. I hope they will be safe and that their wishes will come true in 2023. On the personal and technical side, here’s a summary of the past year from my perspective. Job change First and foremost, I changed jobs. I worked for Hazelcast for 3½ years.

Technical

An immutable Mastodon handle

Whether Twitter crumbles remains to be seen, though some signs are telling. Whatever happens, I’m continuing to invest a bit in Mastodon. Last week, I showed how to sync one’s content between Twitter and Mastodon. This week, I’ve set up a Mastodon handle on my domain that redirects to my profile page: I want to explain how I achieved it and the problems I’m still having.

Development

Preparing to move away from Twitter

I opened my Twitter account more than 13 years ago, in August 2009. For 12 years, I kept focusing on professional-related content: Java, the JVM, programming, etc. I built my audience, trying to promote good technical content, either my own or stuff that I enjoyed reading. Then, on February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine. My first visit to Ukraine was in 2014, just after the Maidan revolution. During eight years, I returned there often and made plenty of friends.

Technical

Web resource caching: Server-side

The subject of Web resource caching is as old as the World Wide Web itself. However, I’d like to offer an as-exhaustive-as-possible catalog of how one can improve performance by caching. Web resource caching can happen in two different places: client-side - on the browser and server side. In the previous post, I explained the former; this post focuses on the latter.

Technical

Web resource caching: Client-side

The subject of Web resource caching is as old as the World Wide Web itself. However, I’d like to offer an as-exhaustive-as-possible catalog of how one can improve performance by caching. Web resource caching can happen in two different places: client-side - on the browser and server-side. This post is dedicated to the former; the next post will focus on the latter.

Technical

A poor man's API

Creating a full-fledged API requires resources, both time and money. You need to think about the model, the design, the REST principles, etc., without writing a single line of code. Most of the time, you don’t know whether it’s worth it: you’d like to offer a Minimum Viable Product and iterate from there. I want to show how you can achieve it without writing a single line of code. The solution The main requirement of the solution is to use the PostgreSQL database.

Java

Spring Modulith: have we reached modularity maturity?

One of the main reasons to design microservices is that they enforce strong module boundaries. However, the cons of microservices are so huge that it’s like chopping off your right hand to learn to write with the left one; there are more manageable (and less painful!) ways to achieve the same result. Even since the microservices craze started, some cooler heads have prevailed.

Development

Geo-routing with Apache APISIX

Apache APISIX, the Apache-led API Gateway, comes out of the box with many plugins to implement your use case. Sometimes, however, the plugin you’re looking for is not available. While creating your own is always possible, it’s sometimes necessary. Today, I’ll show you how to route users according to their location without writing a single line of Lua code. Why geo-routing?

Development

Structured error messages for HTTP APIs

Ever since I started to work on the Apache APISIX project, I’ve been trying to improve my knowledge and understanding of REST RESTful HTTP APIs. For this, I’m reading and watching the following sources: Books. At the moment, I’m finishing API Design Patterns. Expect a review soon.YouTube. I’d recommend ErikWilde' channel. While some videos are better than others, they all focus on APIs.IETF RFCs.

Nicolas Fränkel's blog