Coffee break #75. Advantages and disadvantages of using Spring Boot. Functions for Strings in Java

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Spring Boot

Source: Dev.to Spring Boot is an open source Java-based framework developed by Pivotal Software. Its speed and ease of use have made it a popular solution for creating web application archive (WAR) deployments and standalone Java applications. Spring Boot stands out among other frameworks because it provides software developers with flexible customization, robust batch processing, efficient workflow, and a wealth of tools to help develop robust and scalable Spring-based applications.

Introduction to Spring Boot

When it comes to Spring Boot, the first thing to mention is that Spring Boot and Spring Framework are different technologies. Spring is an entire ecosystem for Java development, including a huge number of ready-made modules, such as Spring MVC, Spring JDBC, Spring Security and others. Spring Boot, on the other hand, is an extension of Spring used for building microservices-based applications. Thanks to the presence of a number of features, it facilitates and speeds up the development process, making it more productive.

Autoconfiguration

Autoconfiguration is a method of working in Spring Boot that reduces the number of steps developers have to take. It automatically configures the Spring application based on previously added dependencies. Spring Boot autoconfiguration offers several robust features by default while maintaining great flexibility.

Dependencies Opinionated

Opinionated means that Spring Boot itself defines a set of default configured beans that you can override if necessary. Moreover, this framework selects packages to install based on the dependencies you need. Thus, Spring Boot developers immediately start building their applications, paying more attention to business logic, since most of the work is done by the framework itself.

Embedded Servers

The embedded server is part of the application. This means you don't need to pre-install it in your deployment environment. Spring Boot offers a built-in Tomcat server by default, but you can change it to Jetty or Undertow. Embedded servers enable more efficient deployment and reduce application restart time.

Work offline

Spring Boot allows developers to configure and run production-grade standalone Spring applications without deploying them to a web server. To run a regular Java application, it must be packaged, selected, loaded and configured as a web server, and deployed. A Java application built in Spring Boot only needs to be packaged and then it is ready to run using simple commands.

What are microservices and why create them?

Spring Boot application development is closely related to microservices, which help in creating lightweight and ready-to-run applications. Microservices are a software architecture technique that allows developers to write and deliver application code in independent, easy-to-manage pieces. In addition, microservices provide developers with many other additional benefits:

• easier and faster deployment;
• easier maintenance;
• increased efficiency;
• better fault tolerance;
• improved scalability.

Should you learn Spring?

While Spring is a complex framework with a fairly long learning curve, Spring Boot is an easier way to dive into the Spring ecosystem. By offering greater automation, Spring Boot helps developers avoid tedious manual configuration, reduce learning curves, and achieve successful results faster. Although Spring Boot does not require you to learn Spring, to improve your development skills, it may be useful to go back to Spring Essentials to understand some of the internal details of Spring Boot, such as dependency injection, how to do configurations, and so on.

Benefits of Spring Boot

Spring Boot is designed to help programmers speed up their development process. It eliminates the time-consuming initial installation and setup of the deployment environment. Main advantages of Spring Boot:

• Fast and easy application development using Spring.
• Auto-configuration of all components for a production-grade Spring application.
• Out-of-the-box embedded servers (Tomcat, Jetty, and Undertow) for faster, more productive application deployment.
• HTTP end-points that allow you to enter internal application functions such as metrics, health status, and others.
• No XML configuration.
• A huge selection of plugins that make it easier for developers to work with embedded and in-memory databases.
• Easy access to databases and queuing services such as MySQL, Oracle, MongoDB, Redis, ActiveMQ and more.
• Seamless integration with the Spring ecosystem.
• Large community and many training programs to make the introductory period easier.

Disadvantages of Spring Boot

• Lack of control. Spring Boot creates a lot of unused dependencies, which results in a large deployment file.
• The complex and time-consuming process of converting a legacy or existing Spring project into Spring Boot applications.
• Not suitable for large-scale projects. According to many developers, despite the lack of problems when working with microservices, Spring Boot is not suitable for creating monolithic applications.

Let's sum it up

Spring Boot has become an integral part of the Java ecosystem, offering an efficient and scalable set of tools for building Spring applications with a microservices architecture. With default settings for unit and integration tests, it allows developers to speed up development and deployment processes. Moreover, Spring Boot helps developers build robust applications with clear and secure configurations without spending a lot of time and effort on learning more about Spring. To decide if this solution meets your Java project's needs, understand the advantages and disadvantages of Spring Boot, its core features, and align them with your business goals. This way you can dispel doubts and choose the best solution for your company.

Functions for Strings in Java

Source: DZone In this post, you'll learn how to better use Java's built-in string functions for faster, more efficient, and more aesthetically pleasing programming.

What is a String?

First we need to understand what a string is. Typically it is used:

• If you want to look at your string as a line and not as a set of characters.
• If you have a long text and you need to work with words rather than characters.
• If you have a lot of information, you need features that resolve issues as quickly as possible.

What the line looks like:

String line;

The length of the line can be different:

String line = new String[any length];

Getting a line from the console:

Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);

String line = in.nextLine();

Getting a position

If you need the position of any character, use indexOf(...) . It returns the numeric value (position) of the character (first if they are repeated), written in parentheses.

int pos = line.indexOf('any symbol');

Remember that ' ' is for characters and " " is for strings (sets of characters).

Cut

Once you have your position, you can delete the line. For example, if you have line="Hello-World" and you want to get line="Hello World" , then you can shorten the "-".

Functions

substring(...) Here in brackets (start position, end position);. This way you shorten from position 0 to position '-'. Here position 5. So, it turns out newline = line.substring(0,5); Then we add the “tail” of our line (“World”). newline += line.substring(6, line.length()); length() Length controls the number of characters in your string. Thus, it can be used as the ending position in a substring. Equals(...) If we want to compare two strings, we use equals(...) . It returns a boolean variable, so the result can be true or false. It is mainly used with if statements .

if (line.isEmpty()) {
    System.out.println("Your line is empty");
}

matches() If you want to compare some parts (using patterns) rather than whole strings, use matches() . Patterns are regular expressions. match() returns a boolean variable, so they are mostly used with if statements .

if (line.matches ("\\d{3}") {
    System.out.println("Your line contains 3 numbers");
}