[MM’s] Engineering Weekly #38 — Engineering Signal in the Age of AI
From AI-driven code experiments to JVM evolution and Spring practices that actually scale
🎯 Featured Article
🧪 The Highest Quality Codebase
An experiment that repeatedly feeds a real-world codebase back into an AI exposes what happens, when “code quality” is optimized without human judgment.
⬢ Reveals how iterative AI refinement amplifies both best practices and extreme overengineering
⬢ Highlights the difference between theoretical quality metrics and maintainable systems
⏩ TL;DR (Quick Recap)
⬢ Question what “high-quality code” really means in an AI-driven workflow
⬢ Track key JVM platform updates and ecosystem releases
⬢ Apply practical Spring Boot patterns for caching, Kafka and testing
⬢ Reflect on engineering culture, architecture choices and modern tooling
☕ JVM Corner
☕ Java News Roundup: JDK 26 in Rampdown, JDK 27 Expert Group, GlassFish, TornadoVM, Spring gRPC
A broad snapshot of the Java ecosystem heading into 2026.
⬢ Summarizes JDK 26 status and early JDK 27 planning
⬢ Covers major GA, beta and RC releases across the ecosystem
🔐 BellSoft Unveils Hardened Java Images
A security-focused approach to Java runtimes in containers.
⬢ Targets supply-chain vulnerabilities in enterprise deployments
⬢ Focuses on hardened, production-ready JVM images
🧬 Java Hello World, LLVM Edition
A creative detour into compiler internals using Java.
⬢ Uses Java to generate and execute LLVM IR
📐 Full Haskell-like Type Class Resolution in Java
An exploration of how far Java’s type system can be pushed.
⬢ Implements type class resolution without language extensions
⬢ Exposes limits of generics and type inference
⏱ ScheduledExecutorService under Stress
A deep dive into executor behavior under overload.
⬢ Explains fixed-rate scheduling edge cases
⬢ Highlights contention between scheduled and immediate tasks
📘 Hands-On Java with Kubernetes
A practical guide to running Java workloads on Kubernetes.
⬢ Connects JVM fundamentals with container orchestration
⬢ Focuses on real-world deployment patterns
🧠 On the Boundaries of Final
A detailed look at JEP 500 and the Java Memory Model.
⬢ Explains unsafe publication and visibility issues
⬢ Challenges assumptions about immutability
🚀 Optimizing MongoDB Queries in Java Applications
A performance-focused guide to database interaction.
⬢ Identifies common query and indexing pitfalls
🟣 How Backend Development Teams Use Kotlin in 2025
Insights from teams using Kotlin in production.
⬢ Highlights real adoption patterns
⬢ Explains where Kotlin delivers measurable benefits
🍃 Spring Updates
🍃 From Chaos to Control: Spring Boot Caching That Actually Works
A pragmatic guide to caching without destabilizing systems.
⬢ Explains common caching failure modes
⬢ Provides patterns for predictable performance gains
🏗 Stop Learning Kafka the Hard Way! This Spring Boot Guide Changes Everything
A conceptual approach to Kafka with Spring Boot.
⬢ Focuses on system behavior, not just APIs
⬢ Improves production readiness and interview clarity
🤝 MockMvcTester vs RestTestClient
A comparison of modern controller testing tools in Spring Framework 7.
⬢ Clarifies trade-offs between testing approaches
⬢ Helps align tests with application goals
🔍 Extra Reads
Engineering Culture & Career
🏗 How Good Engineers Write Bad Code at Big Companies — Explains how organizational incentives degrade code quality.
🧭 Why I Ignore the Spotlight as a Staff Engineer — Advocates for systems thinking over individual visibility.
🤝 No Code Reviews by Default — Describes a trust-based engineering culture experiment.
Architecture & Distributed Systems
🏛 You Want Microservices, But Do You Really Need Them? — Reassesses microservices through cost and complexity.
🔑 On Idempotency Keys — Explains exactly-once processing with idempotency patterns.
📡 Patterns for Deploying OTel Collector at Scale — Explores scalable observability deployments.
AI, Tooling & Productivity
⚡ OpenAI’s New GPT-5.1 Models — Summarizes improvements in speed and usability.
🎮 Codex, Opus, Gemini Try to Build Counter Strike — Benchmarks coding agents via a game challenge.
🔁 Running Claude Code in a Loop — Automates large-scale refactoring with persistent AI context.
Design, Tools & Workflow
🧠 A Central Conflict in “Readable” Code — Reframes readability as a cost-management problem.
🧰 The Unified IntelliJ IDEA — Details JetBrains’ move to a single IDE offering.
🚀 When AI Code Overloads CI — Addresses CI bottlenecks caused by AI-generated code.
Originally posted on marconak-matej.medium.com.