jte VS initializr

For java/Kotlin, we are using JTE (https://jte.gg/#getting-started), pretty nice build tooling and IDE support to generate pre-compiled templates without additional code generation steps.

Thanks for the hints! I created an issue for this: https://github.com/casid/jte/issues/240

JTE is a template engine for Java/Kotlin that I've started using recently. While trying to integrate tailwind I've run into issue with the (notorious) IntelliJ tailwind plugin. I've opened a ticket with JetBrains to ask that they add *.kte and *.jte file extensions to the tailwind plugin. If anyone else is keen for this change to be made, please upvote the linked ticket.

Instead of using commonly used frameworks (like Spring Framework) I preffered to use something that is small and doesn't have "magic" in it. So I've chosen Javalin as a simple web framework, added MongoDB client libraries nad jte as template engine. To show that simple and clean looking apps doesn't need any big JS libraries I've selected chota - one of micro CSS frameworks.

Because the code is generated Java code the runtime dependency is minimal and I plan on offering a zero dependency runtime version. I believe to have one of the smallest footprints of Java templating languages and is as fast as jte.

A microframework or Spring Boot + Template Engine such as jte or Thymeleaf gets you far.

I can highly recommend https://github.com/casid/jte

The best way, for generating a ready-to-run application in Java you can use the Spring Boot Initializr tool.

curl --location 'https://start.spring.io/starter.zip?type=maven-project&language=java&bootVersion=3.2.2&baseDir=ms-xcoffee&groupId=com.xcoffee&artifactId=ms-xcoffee&name=ms-xcoffee&description=Demo%20project%20for%20Spring%20Boot&packageName=com.xcoffee.ms-xcoffee&packaging=jar&javaVersion=21&dependencies=webflux%2Clombok%2Cvalidation' | tar -xzvf -

In this segment we will create a basic Spring boot app from Spring Initializer. Add the below dependencies:

Add the following MongoDB dependencies in your pom.xml or use spring initializer and select the Spring Data MongoDB dependency:

I created all of these applications using start.spring.io's REST API and HTTPie.

An easy way to create the skeleton project is to visit Spring Initializr, I set the Project to Gradle - Groovy, Language to Java, and add Spring Web dependency. Then it's just to generate the project and unpack it.

Create a new Spring Boot application using the Spring Initializr. You can use the web version or the curl command below. Use the default for most of the options. For the dependencies, select web, and okta. For the build tool, select Gradle.

I will start with a simple example of a cloud function, which is the same as a rest endpoint in the classical spring boot web application. You can create a project from your favorite IDE or from Spring Initliazr.