7 ms·

Indeed. I have a dozen or so microservices supported by team. Most are SpringBoot a couple of them I wrote myself with plain java and embedded tomcat. Needless

by geodel 5y ago

Indeed. I have a dozen or so microservices supported by team. Most are SpringBoot a couple of them I wrote myself with plain java and embedded tomcat. Needless to say Springboot stuff is rather complicated for such a simple business functionality. Errors are indecipherable being swamped by thousand line framework exception trace. But being an "enterprise standard" framework all projects must be move to this turd of a framework.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago
Another big difficulty is the handling of depedencies, as spring boot is bringing in gprc, jpa, jdbc and countless other libraries. One really needs a dedicated team to figure out all these issues!
- geodel 5y ago
  Very true! But management is sold on "best practices" from VMWare suits. So any practical difficulty is just an excuse for not learning the latest, Next generation technologies.
- kaba0 5y ago
  It brings in whatever you use. Also, it has a goddamn webpage where you can click together what do you want to use and it will create an initial project for you with the chosen build tool and what not. It hardly gets easier than that.
- royjacobs 5y ago
  This isn't true. Spring Boot by itself brings in very little, you can however _add_ GRPC, JPA and JDBC support by adding a library and Spring Boot will even autoconfigure it for you.
bedobi 5y ago
I'm in an enterprise and have successfully lobbied people to use anything other than Spring. Such organizations and teams while rare do exist so don't give up hope! (or just move to a more progressive org)
- heurisko 5y ago
  > I'm in an enterprise and have successfully lobbied people to use anything other than Spring. I was in a team that used Spring Boot for a greenfield project. The documentation was great, there was tons of help of Stackoverflow (as it's Spring) and the consideration given to testing was first class. Deployment was also easy, as we just created a fat JAR. No application server necessary. It was a great place to work.
  - bedobi 5y ago
    I have also been in multiple organizations where Spring was used, including "modern" Spring Boot and greenfield projects, and people who knew every nook and cranny of Spring. I don't agree with any of the things you bring up. Spring documentation is and has always been poor and the sheer volume of outdated documentation (let alone ways to do the same thing) makes it needlessly difficult to find an answer to any given question. Differences between the real app and real http requests to the app, and using the Spring test application context and Spring HTTP tests, result in tests misleadingly passing when things are actually broken. (or vice versa) This is different to eg DropWizard where you actually boot the app (no different to how it does in a real env ie no "test application context") and make real http requests to it. (not some watered down fake Spring HTTP test requests) Ability to deploy a standalone jar without the need for an application server is hardly unique to Spring. Add in the horribly, horribly ingrained, unidiomatic ways people use Spring (eg sprinkling field autowiring all over the place instead of instead of using constructor injection) etc etc and every codebase is quickly completely ruined vs if it had been implemented in literally any other framework. But! Fortunately for you, the Java community has made their choice, and it's not going to change - Spring is the default and correct option, and anyone who uses any other framework is just stubborn and wrong.
    - heurisko 5y ago
      > Spring documentation is and has always been poor and the sheer volume of outdated documentation Spring documentation is excellent. I had to learn Spring as a PHP developer, so I put the documentation onto a Kindle and read it. It's also versioned, so you don't need to read out of date versions: https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/ https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/ > This is different to eg DropWizard where you actually boot the app (no different to how it does in a real env ie no "test application context") and make real http requests to it. (not some watered down fake Spring HTTP test requests) Spring Boot allows you to write full application tests that will boot it up on a random port with the @SpringBootTest annotation, as is covered by the excellent documentation https://spring.io/guides/gs/testing-web/ https://spring.io/guides/gs/testing-web/ > Add in the horribly, horribly ingrained, unidiomatic ways people use Spring (eg sprinkling field autowiring all over the place instead of instead of using constructor injection) You can use whichever. > anyone who uses any other framework is just stubborn and wrong. Not at all. Spring Boot is just a great solution, that's all. It's got strong support from a company, lots of documentation and first class support for testing. It also allows you to easily swap out different underlying technology, eg. you can switch from Jetty or Tomcat, Liquibase to Flyway. It's a disservice to persuade businesses to use smaller projects that don't have a comparable level of support, or flexibility.
heurisko 5y ago
> Errors are indecipherable being swamped by thousand line framework exception trace Don't you just look at the top lines?
- tpxl 5y ago
  If you're lucky and the exception happens in your code directly. If not you're gonna have about 30 lines of interceptors and generators and whatnot before you get to your class. If you call ClassA::foo from ClassB::bar you'll get about 5 lines of interceptors between foo and bar in your stack trace. Debugging is also a nightmare in IntelliJ as step-into and step-out will go through all those interceptors.
  - heurisko 5y ago
    I used Spring Boot and just set debug breakpoints, that way you don't have to step into and out-of, you just press "play" and it moves to the next breakpoint.
  - windock 5y ago
    Debugging bothered me too. But in the end I have configured IntelliJ to skip all the interceptor classes while stepping into. Had to add a whole bunch of classes and packages for that though
kaba0 5y ago
And in 99% of cases that little microservice will suddenly need thread pooling, logging, some more advanced db management or God help some random messaging service and you are back to re-implementing the myriad features of spring in a shittier way. It is not an accident that things like ruby on rails are popular. These are well-tested toolboxes with a solution for almost every conceivable problem. There are exceptions where it is not needed, but for business applications those are not numerous.
- epse 5y ago
  I don't think people have any issues with the fact that spring is batteries included. It seems to me (and this is my personal experience too) that the large amounts of abstraction and indirection through annotations makes the code very hard to parse. It makes it hard to create a mental graph of how it all works together
  - touisteur 5y ago
    Looks like an IDE / language server that unrolls the annotation generated code might be what's missing here. I like my abstractions to be hidden, but I like to be able to peek under the hood. That's one of the problems of C++ templates, sometimes I want to look at the expanded code. The GNAT Ada compiler has an option to output a much-simplified code. Not compilable Ada, but very inspectable unrolled, expanded code. Makes for a great teaching tool. Aaaaaaah this generic mechanism does that! Edit: link https://docs.adacore.com/gnat_ugn-docs/html/gnat_ugn/gnat_ugn/building_executable_programs_with_gnat.html https://docs.adacore.com/gnat_ugn-docs/html/gnat_ugn/gnat_ug... look up -gnatG[=nn]... Good stuff.
    - the_gipsy 5y ago
      > Looks like an IDE / language server that unrolls the annotation generated code might be what's missing here. I think you're missing the point.
  - stepbeek 5y ago
    I found the real challenge to be that it's very difficult - if not impossible - to determine how spring functions simply by reading code and using it. In simpler libraries or frameworks, I normally just read the source to understand how I should be using it. With Spring, I've had to spend a lot of time reading and re-reaading docs to understand what's going on. I think that this is sometimes a hard shift for developers who otherwise have spent their lives with an ability to puzzle out the constructs that they come across.
pshirshov 5y ago
> I have a dozen or so microservices supported by team. Why do you need a dozen of microservices? Why not to use role-based monoliths? Why not to keep your "microservices" as independent modules, pack them as one app and let such app to configure itself with proper set of services and dependencies according to the config or CLI parameters?..
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- geodel 5y ago
  Just a developer there. So not calling shots on overall architecture. And yes we do not need probably 80% of that crap but not in position to make them see reason.

by geodel 5y ago

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

Another big difficulty is the handling of depedencies, as spring boot is bringing in gprc, jpa, jdbc and countless other libraries. One really needs a dedicated team to figure out all these issues!

geodel 5y ago
Very true! But management is sold on "best practices" from VMWare suits. So any practical difficulty is just an excuse for not learning the latest, Next generation technologies.
kaba0 5y ago
It brings in whatever you use. Also, it has a goddamn webpage where you can click together what do you want to use and it will create an initial project for you with the chosen build tool and what not. It hardly gets easier than that.
royjacobs 5y ago
This isn't true. Spring Boot by itself brings in very little, you can however _add_ GRPC, JPA and JDBC support by adding a library and Spring Boot will even autoconfigure it for you.

bedobi 5y ago

I'm in an enterprise and have successfully lobbied people to use anything other than Spring. Such organizations and teams while rare do exist so don't give up hope! (or just move to a more progressive org)

heurisko 5y ago
> I'm in an enterprise and have successfully lobbied people to use anything other than Spring. I was in a team that used Spring Boot for a greenfield project. The documentation was great, there was tons of help of Stackoverflow (as it's Spring) and the consideration given to testing was first class. Deployment was also easy, as we just created a fat JAR. No application server necessary. It was a great place to work.
- bedobi 5y ago
  I have also been in multiple organizations where Spring was used, including "modern" Spring Boot and greenfield projects, and people who knew every nook and cranny of Spring. I don't agree with any of the things you bring up. Spring documentation is and has always been poor and the sheer volume of outdated documentation (let alone ways to do the same thing) makes it needlessly difficult to find an answer to any given question. Differences between the real app and real http requests to the app, and using the Spring test application context and Spring HTTP tests, result in tests misleadingly passing when things are actually broken. (or vice versa) This is different to eg DropWizard where you actually boot the app (no different to how it does in a real env ie no "test application context") and make real http requests to it. (not some watered down fake Spring HTTP test requests) Ability to deploy a standalone jar without the need for an application server is hardly unique to Spring. Add in the horribly, horribly ingrained, unidiomatic ways people use Spring (eg sprinkling field autowiring all over the place instead of instead of using constructor injection) etc etc and every codebase is quickly completely ruined vs if it had been implemented in literally any other framework. But! Fortunately for you, the Java community has made their choice, and it's not going to change - Spring is the default and correct option, and anyone who uses any other framework is just stubborn and wrong.
  - heurisko 5y ago
    > Spring documentation is and has always been poor and the sheer volume of outdated documentation Spring documentation is excellent. I had to learn Spring as a PHP developer, so I put the documentation onto a Kindle and read it. It's also versioned, so you don't need to read out of date versions: https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/ https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/ > This is different to eg DropWizard where you actually boot the app (no different to how it does in a real env ie no "test application context") and make real http requests to it. (not some watered down fake Spring HTTP test requests) Spring Boot allows you to write full application tests that will boot it up on a random port with the @SpringBootTest annotation, as is covered by the excellent documentation https://spring.io/guides/gs/testing-web/ https://spring.io/guides/gs/testing-web/ > Add in the horribly, horribly ingrained, unidiomatic ways people use Spring (eg sprinkling field autowiring all over the place instead of instead of using constructor injection) You can use whichever. > anyone who uses any other framework is just stubborn and wrong. Not at all. Spring Boot is just a great solution, that's all. It's got strong support from a company, lots of documentation and first class support for testing. It also allows you to easily swap out different underlying technology, eg. you can switch from Jetty or Tomcat, Liquibase to Flyway. It's a disservice to persuade businesses to use smaller projects that don't have a comparable level of support, or flexibility.

heurisko 5y ago

> Errors are indecipherable being swamped by thousand line framework exception trace Don't you just look at the top lines?

tpxl 5y ago
If you're lucky and the exception happens in your code directly. If not you're gonna have about 30 lines of interceptors and generators and whatnot before you get to your class. If you call ClassA::foo from ClassB::bar you'll get about 5 lines of interceptors between foo and bar in your stack trace. Debugging is also a nightmare in IntelliJ as step-into and step-out will go through all those interceptors.
- heurisko 5y ago
  I used Spring Boot and just set debug breakpoints, that way you don't have to step into and out-of, you just press "play" and it moves to the next breakpoint.
- windock 5y ago
  Debugging bothered me too. But in the end I have configured IntelliJ to skip all the interceptor classes while stepping into. Had to add a whole bunch of classes and packages for that though

kaba0 5y ago

And in 99% of cases that little microservice will suddenly need thread pooling, logging, some more advanced db management or God help some random messaging service and you are back to re-implementing the myriad features of spring in a shittier way. It is not an accident that things like ruby on rails are popular. These are well-tested toolboxes with a solution for almost every conceivable problem. There are exceptions where it is not needed, but for business applications those are not numerous.

epse 5y ago
I don't think people have any issues with the fact that spring is batteries included. It seems to me (and this is my personal experience too) that the large amounts of abstraction and indirection through annotations makes the code very hard to parse. It makes it hard to create a mental graph of how it all works together
- touisteur 5y ago
  Looks like an IDE / language server that unrolls the annotation generated code might be what's missing here. I like my abstractions to be hidden, but I like to be able to peek under the hood. That's one of the problems of C++ templates, sometimes I want to look at the expanded code. The GNAT Ada compiler has an option to output a much-simplified code. Not compilable Ada, but very inspectable unrolled, expanded code. Makes for a great teaching tool. Aaaaaaah this generic mechanism does that! Edit: link https://docs.adacore.com/gnat_ugn-docs/html/gnat_ugn/gnat_ugn/building_executable_programs_with_gnat.html https://docs.adacore.com/gnat_ugn-docs/html/gnat_ugn/gnat_ug... look up -gnatG[=nn]... Good stuff.
  - the_gipsy 5y ago
    > Looks like an IDE / language server that unrolls the annotation generated code might be what's missing here. I think you're missing the point.
- stepbeek 5y ago
  I found the real challenge to be that it's very difficult - if not impossible - to determine how spring functions simply by reading code and using it. In simpler libraries or frameworks, I normally just read the source to understand how I should be using it. With Spring, I've had to spend a lot of time reading and re-reaading docs to understand what's going on. I think that this is sometimes a hard shift for developers who otherwise have spent their lives with an ability to puzzle out the constructs that they come across.

pshirshov 5y ago

> I have a dozen or so microservices supported by team. Why do you need a dozen of microservices? Why not to use role-based monoliths? Why not to keep your "microservices" as independent modules, pack them as one app and let such app to configure itself with proper set of services and dependencies according to the config or CLI parameters?..

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
geodel 5y ago
Just a developer there. So not calling shots on overall architecture. And yes we do not need probably 80% of that crap but not in position to make them see reason.