Engineering With Java: Digest #71

Best of blogs, articles, code samples, interview questions & jobs

Jan 04, 2026

👋 Java Devs! Welcome to this week’s addition! Happy New Year !! I hope you spent a wonderful time with your family and friends.

This week, we cover essential insights on:

But before we kick off, one important announcement!

Some of you have reached out to my email for some discounts on annual subscription. I understand that for fresh grads/students it’s hard to pay $30 per year and I would like to share an additional 40% discount ($18 per year) until Jan 31st.

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If you are still experiencing financial constraints that make it challenging to pay, please email me directly, and I will look into it.

Let’s kick off the newsletter with fun fact!

So please don’t hate your Java! Java puts food on the table 😊

🗒️ Articles Of The Week (7)

Adaptive Timeouts for Spring Boot Outbound Calls: This article explains how adaptive timeouts in Spring Boot dynamically adjust outbound HTTP timeouts based on recent latency metrics instead of relying on static values. By tracking response times (for example, using Micrometer percentiles) and recalculating timeouts within safe bounds, services can avoid both premature failures and excessive waiting, staying responsive as downstream performance fluctuates.

Building AI-Powered Applications with Spring AI and LangChain4j: This article explains how Java developers can build AI-powered applications using Spring AI and LangChain4j for LLM integration. It covers key patterns like prompt templates, embeddings, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), plus agent and tool support. Spring AI suits Spring Boot apps, while LangChain4j offers a more flexible, framework-agnostic approach.

Building Semantic Caching with Spring AI: This article explains how to implement semantic caching with Spring AI to reuse AI responses based on meaning, reducing latency and LLM costs. It covers using Redis Stack as a vector store, configuring embeddings, and checking similarity before calling the LLM. Queries above a similarity threshold return cached answers, while others invoke the AI and store the result.

Paradigm Shifts in Programming Languages: Object-Oriented, Functional, and Beyond: This article explores how programming has evolved across object-oriented, functional, reactive, and logic paradigms, highlighting their core principles and trade-offs. It explains why modern languages increasingly blend multiple paradigms instead of enforcing a single style. The key takeaway is that understanding these paradigms helps developers choose the right approach per problem rather than following one model dogmatically.

Spring Boot Was Taking 25 Seconds to Start — Java 21 Fixed Most of It: This article explains how the author reduced a Spring Boot app’s startup from 25 to 4 seconds using Java 21 and targeted optimizations. By enabling detailed startup logging, they identified slow bean initializations and other bottlenecks. The takeaway is that measuring startup behavior and applying focused fixes can drastically improve Spring Boot cold starts.

Conditionally Ignore Tests in TestNG: This article shows how to conditionally skip tests in TestNG using runtime checks instead of static annotations. We can throw a SkipException or use an IAnnotationTransformer listener to disable tests before execution. This helps tests adapt to dynamic conditions like environment or configuration while keeping reports accurate.

Virtual Thread States: This article explains that Java virtual threads have about 20 internal states mapped to the standard six Thread.State values. Using a custom ThreadInspector, we can inspect these hidden states to see how virtual threads transition in different scenarios. This helps developers better understand and debug virtual thread behavior beyond Thread.getState().

Recently Published In-house Blogs (5)

Spring Boot Interview Question – Improve API Latency (4.2k+ views)
Java Coding Problem - Returning Subscribers (1.29k views)
Do we need @Repository on Spring Data JPA repositories? — Spring Boot Interview Question(1.6k views)
Java Bug Fix Interview Question - Caching User Profiles (2.86k views)
Virtual Threads Make Blocking Cheap (But Not Free)(1.6k views)

▶️ Videos Of The Week (3)

SQL vs NoSQL: the war is over: This video analyzes Data Dog’s research on SQL vs NoSQL usage and finds that most organizations now use multiple database types along with message queues and GraphQL to coordinate them. While framed as a success (polyglot persistence), this setup introduces massive complexity, eventual consistency issues, and performance challenges like N+1 GraphQL queries. The takeaway is that polyglot persistence works for large teams with diverse workloads, but smaller teams may be better off sticking to fewer databases and simpler architectures.

Predictability or Innovation? Both! - Inside Java Podcast 43: This podcast episode explores Java’s future and evolution with George Saab, focusing on tackling the right problems and making the platform predictable. It covers trends in hardware, programming paradigms, AI, and data-oriented programming, emphasizing solutions that empower the community rather than point solutions. The discussion also highlights efforts to improve learning and accessibility, including the Learn Java platform, VS Code integration, and partnerships for updated curricula, ensuring Java remains approachable for new developers while supporting advanced use cases.

Engineering Mindset for International Java Jobs: Top international companies don’t just hire coders—they hire engineers who solve real problems. To succeed, we need an ownership mindset: understand the problem fully, ask the right clarifying questions, make assumptions explicit, and follow through on solutions. Focus on simplicity, maintainable code, and trade-offs, balancing performance, scalability, and cost. Communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, make informed decisions even under uncertainty, and proactively improve systems. Thinking like an engineer—not just a Java coder—is what makes we valuable in global roles.

▶️ Jobs Of The Week (5)

📚 Helpful Resources (7)

Thats all for this week! Thanks for reading this far. If you liked it please share with your network.

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Happy Coding 🚀
Suraj

Engineering With Java

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