Java on Michael Hönnig

Exploring Lombok’s val: Advantages and Disadvantages

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines Lombok’s val — how it uses annotation processing to infer local variable types and enforce finality—highlighting benefits like cleaner, more readable code, compile-time safety, immutability, pre–Java 10 support, and seamless Lombok integration, while weighing drawbacks such as redundancy with Java 10+ var, reduced flexibility due to final variables, reliance on compiler internals with potential compatibility risks, and possible lag in new JDK support; it recommends using val chiefly in Lombok-heavy, pre–Java 10, immutable contexts, but preferring native var in modern Java and planning a long-term shift toward Java-native features.

Exploring the aider AI Coding Assistant in a Non-Trivial Codebase

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0200

While most AI code generation examples show how to quickly bootstrap a new web application, I was curious how far an AI coding assistant can take me in an existing, non-trivial codebase – one with a Java backend, automated tests, APIs (OpenAPI), PostgreSQL database migrations (Liquibase). So, I decided to explore the open-source AI tool aider, applying it to one of my Open Source projects.

Book Review: Java by Comparison: Become a Java Craftsman in 70 Examples

Sat, 01 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

“Java by Comparison” leads the reader through 70 examples into software-craftship. Each example compares a snipped of typical “unclean” code with a “clean” replacement, including a short discussion about the reasoning.

Course Review "Spring Framework 5: Beginner to Guru" (Udemy)

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Wow, this amazing 34 hours video course Spring Framework 5: Beginner to Guru (with SpringBoot 2.0) is really quite massive! Learning almost full time, it took me a little over 2 weeks to work through. Ok, I admit, I only really completed ~99% because I skipped a few cookbook goodies which are currently completely irrelevant for me.

Form submit method-mapping with @RequestMapping / @PostMapping etc. in Spring

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Recently I ran across a missing method="post" in a <form ...> tag within a Thymeleaf template which was working despite an @PostMapping annotation of the SpringFramework on the controller method. I was wondering how this could happen and did some investigation. Hopefully this article gives a better chance for the next one who runs into this problem.

LiveReload in Chrome and Firefox with SpringBoot and IntelliJ IDEA

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Working on a web application with SpringBoot and want your changes made in IntelliJ IDEA to be visible in the browser right away? Then this is for you:

Course Review "The Complete Microservices with Spring Course" (Udemy)

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Recently I’ve worked through the video course “The Complete Microservices with Spring Course” by MleTech Academy, LLC, which is an introduction to the most important Spring modules for building microservices.

Course Review „Become at ease with Java 8“ (Udemy)

Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Having mostly used Java 7 in the last years and after some month of coding only with TypeScript, JavaScript and Solidity, I’ve now worked through the video course „Become at ease with Java 8“ by Stijn De Mulder. My motivation was to give me a refresh on Java 8 features, which I only knew from magazine articles and “playing around”.