Thoughts on agile software development
Sometimes changes to a library are made so easily that it’s not really worth talking about. The Maven Plugin from posts Build Automatisierung mit eigenen Mojos verbessern and Trivial Pursuit – API MarkDown generates AsciiDoc documentation for simple OpenAPI descriptions. So far, the Maven Plugin uses a JSON description as input format. Since the YAML representation is used more frequently, its support would also be desirable.
I am proud to announce the release of FreshMarker 1.0.0! Having started as a small example for blog posts two years ago, FreshMarker has evolved into a robust and versatile framework designed to meet diverse templating needs.
While implementing some tests for the Freshmarker 1.0.0 release, I discovered another interesting possibility for a JUnit 5 TempDirFactory implementation. But first things first.
FreshMarker is an embedded Java template engine that focusses on extensibility and simplicity. For this reason, every implementation of an extension is associated with weighing up its pros and cons. For a long time, the import directive therefore remained an unrealised feature.
While reviewing the mutation tests for FreshMarker, I noticed an implementation gap in the logical expression. So if something needs to be changed, why not quickly add something new.
A Java developer always likes to look into the JDK, like a magician in his old tomes, to see if there is an unknown spell, er method, with which he can improve his source code. In fact, Java 21 has introduced a lot of new methods that make everyday life a little easier.
When I first heard about mutation testing, I was – to put it kindly – very confused. The idea that we change our code to see which tests fail doesn’t look particularly promising at first glance. But if you take a closer look at the approach, you realize the potential it holds.
With Java 22, string interpolation is fighting for its place in the Java ecosystem. What works in other languages and many frameworks should now also simplify the work of Java developers. Some wishes are fulfilled for the developers, others unfortunately not and some would never have been expressed. But more on that later.
It is always instructive to look at well-known open source projects to learn from the implementation used. Sometimes you look at the unit tests and start to wonder. A serious problem with large and old frameworks is the time-consuming adaptation to changing environments. Modern features in libraries such as JUnit 5 simplify the code base immensely.
Since the introduction of Java Records in Java 14 (JEP 359), their support in many frameworks has continued to grow. Support is now so great that we should consider banning Lombok from all our projects.