MM’s Engineering Weekly #35 — Spring Boot 4, JVM Evolution & the Shape of Modern Engineering
A new generation of Spring meets a rapidly shifting JVM and tooling landscape
🎯 Featured Article
🟢 Spring Boot 4.0.0 available now
A new generation of Spring Boot arrives with deep modularization, JSpecify-based null safety, Java 25 support and advances in REST client experience and API versioning.
⬢ Introduces fully modularized Boot autoconfiguration for leaner, focused deployments
⬢ Adds first-class Java 25 and JSpecify null-safety support across the portfolio
⏩ TL;DR (Quick Recap)
⬢ Spring Boot 4 and Spring Framework 7 mark the biggest structural update
⬢ JVM ecosystem evolves with FFM, iOS support and new Kotlin testing frameworks
⬢ Spring Observability, API Versioning and IDE tooling take major steps forward
⬢ Extra Reads include AI agents, Cloudflare outage insights, React frameworks and debugging skills
☕ JVM Corner
🧪 Lifting Kotlin testing: Comparing JUnit, Kotlin-test, Kotest, Prepared and TestBalloon
A systematic comparison of Kotlin’s testing landscape, exploring maturity, ergonomics and innovation potential.
⬢ Highlights trade-offs between expressive DSLs, tooling integration and ecosystem support
⬢ Shows where future innovation may fill remaining gaps in Kotlin-first testing
🧩 From JNI to FFM: The future of Java-native interoperability
A practical guide to replacing JNI with the safer, more ergonomic FFM API.
⬢ Explains why developers are migrating to FFM for performance and maintainability
⬢ Offers step-by-step native integration patterns suitable for modern Java applications
📱 Running Java on iOS: Gluon Introduces OpenJDK Mobile Resources
The OpenJDK mobile repo can now build static libjvm binaries runnable on iOS, enabling true Java portability.
⬢ Allows executing unmodified Java code on iOS and Android
📦 Are you really wasting your time in Java without these 10 libraries?
A curated list of productivity-boosting Java libraries for everyday development — review.
🍃 Spring Updates
🌱 OpenTelemetry with Spring Boot
A guide to enabling full-stack observability — metrics, traces and logs — via OpenTelemetry in Spring Boot.
⬢ Explains unified observability patterns for cloud-native workloads
⬢ Demonstrates how Spring Boot simplifies OTel setup
🌀 Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4 Deliver API Versioning, Resilience, and Null-Safe Annotations
A broader look at the platform-level improvements shipping across Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4.
⬢ Introduces first-class REST API versioning and built-in resilience features
⬢ Brings Jakarta EE 11, Kotlin 2.2, and Jackson 3 support
💡 IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3 💚 Spring 7
JetBrains ships deep Spring 7 integration aligned with the new generation of the framework.
⬢ Improves navigation, inspections, API versioning support and HTTP client tooling
⬢ Offers early alignment with Spring Boot 4 modularization
🌾 Architecture Patterns Using Spring Events
Practical architectural patterns leveraging Spring Events in monoliths and domain-driven designs.
⬢ Demonstrates event-driven refactoring patterns for clearer boundaries
⬢ Shows how to maintain readable, maintainable application flows with events
🔍 Extra Reads
Engineering Craft & Personal Growth
📝 The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition — A reflection on the updated, modernized edition of the software-engineering classic.
🧠 Maybe you’re not Actually Trying — A look at selective agency in high-capability individuals.
🚫 Things That Aren’t Doing the Thing — A concise reminder about action vs. meta-work.
👣 Reflections on My Tech Career — A career retrospective highlighting lessons learned across decades.
AI, Agents & Developer Tooling
🚀 Introducing Google Antigravity — Google’s agent-first development platform for autonomous software creation.
🌌 Google Announces Gemini 3 — A new flagship multimodal model deployed across all major Google developer platforms.
🛠️ Which IDEs do software engineers love, and why? — A snapshot of the modern IDE landscape, with Cursor leading the pack.
Cloud, Infrastructure & Reliability
☁️ Cloudflare Outage on November 18, 2025 — A post-mortem on a Spring Bot Management logic bug that triggered widespread disruptions.
🔐 FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs — A raw conversation about open source sustainability and security responsibility.
📉 7 Common Kubernetes Pitfalls — Field-tested pitfalls and how to avoid them.
🚪 Ingress NGINX Retirement — NGINX Ingress will retire in 2026; plan your migration.
Debugging & ML Systems
🔎 Conscious Debugging — Ten practical debugging strategies rooted in cognitive clarity.
🎬 Integrating Netflix’s Foundation Model into Personalization Applications — How Netflix consolidates personalization into a single large-scale foundation model.
Originally posted on marconak-matej.medium.com.