I've found that without a framework, there is very little to actually connect. I use something like spring-context for stateful things like datasources and queu

I've found that without a framework, there is very little to actually connect. I use something like spring-context for stateful things like datasources and queue connections, for clean setup/teardown. In the controller, I call a service which returns a plain map with data, and pass that data to a mustache template. I tend to just invoke stuff and pass around data. What is the difference between `mustasche("foo.mustache", myService.baz())` and some implicit render logic a la Rails? One extra line with the template name instead of a framework that implicitly resolves the template? Setting up a new app usually takes me 10-15 minutes and 100-150 lines of boilerplate (read config files, create spring context, wire up controllers, ...), which is definitely worth the (low) cost in my opinion to achieve the blissful state of absolutely no implicit stuff happening beyond my "main" being invoked. This win gets bigger the more the project grows.