Micronaut VS SDKMan

Reduce memory-heavy dependencies. Third party libraries are often very resource-hungry. Opt for lightweight lambda-friendly frameworks such as  Micronaut or Quarkus.

The innovations didn't stop there. We also use compilation to a native image via GraalVM, which enabled us to switch to the latest Java versions. Also, we use DI based on Micronaut, and overall, we try to keep up with new industry trends.

This allows Java to have such goodies as reflection, dynamic proxies, ServiceLoader, and DI frameworks like Spring, Micronaut, or Quarkus.

Micronaut is a modern, JVM-based, full-stack framework designed for building modular, highly testable microservices and serverless applications. After working with Micronaut for over two years, I decided to transition to Quarkus.

In this application, we will create products and retrieve them by their ID and use Amazon DynamoDB as a NoSQL database for the persistence layer. We use Amazon API Gateway which makes it easy for developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor and secure APIs and AWS Lambda to execute code without the need to provision or manage servers. We also use AWS SAM, which provides a short syntax optimised for defining infrastructure as code (hereafter IaC) for serverless applications. For this article, I assume a basic understanding of the mentioned AWS services, serverless architectures in AWS, Micronaut framework and GraalVM including its Native Image capabilities.

You mention Django, but these days, are you using the full Django experience or are you mostly writing REST APIs?

In Java land a very nice and much lighter weight framework is Dropwizard: https://github.com/dropwizard/dropwizard

It's basically a sort of All-Stars collection of Java libraries, nicely packaged and with some nice conventions.

Towards the more servless route route there's Micronaut: https://micronaut.io/

• GraalVM Official Website: https://www.graalvm.org • Native Image Documentation: https://www.graalvm.org/reference-manual/native-image/ • Spring Native Project: https://spring.io/projects/spring-native • Quarkus Framework: https://quarkus.io • Micronaut Framework: https://micronaut.io • Oracle Substrate VM Paper: https://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol10/p1138-vincent.pdf • “Fast Startup for Java” by Cristiano Betta (Conference Paper) • OpenTelemetry Java Native Image Support: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/java/nativeimage/

In this article, we'll walk through how to use Firestore on the server side, using Micronaut and Java 21 as our development stack. Let’s dive into how Firestore can help you build scalable, AI-powered applications with ease.

Toolchains: I use SDKMAN! for JDKs, NVM for Node.js, rustup for Rust, Bun, Go, Python, Deno, and the usual Linux build tools.

I also installed SDKMAN and JBang to test a few of the Pi4J JBang examples.

This board delivered the smoothest experience of all four BeagleBoards. Using BeagleBoard's excellent Imaging Utility, I created an SD card with the latest OS, providing the username and password I want to use via the settings. With the SD card installed, I connected it via micro HDMI and USB, and booted into a desktop environment within minutes. After the standard update and `upgrade, I installed SDKMAN, Java (Azul Zulu 25.0.2 with JavaFX support), and JBang. The JavaFX test application from tge Pi4J JBang repository ran flawlessly, confirming that both Java and JavaFX work perfectly on this ARM-based board. It's very comparable to the Raspberry Pi 5, even sharing similar connector placement, making it an excellent choice for Java development.

Install using sdkman

I prefer to use sdkman to manage my Java installations.

(Alternative) Use SDKMAN! If you need to frequently switch Java versions, to test specific features, the best is to use SDKMAN!. Sdkman is for Java what Nvm(Node version manager) is for node!

SDKman UI aims to offer a (cross-platform) Graphical User Interface for SDKMAN. It extends the functionality of the terminal-tool SDKMAN with a user interface, but also makes the tool available for Window systems.

I used sdkman for switching between multiple Java versions, and in this case I used java 17.0.12. For the Flutter version, I used fvm and used flutter 3.24.0 on this project.

The reason I picked this issue is because the project was in Java. I've wanted to work with Java for a while because despite it's popularity I haven't had much exposure to it. Meaning with this issue, I was working in a completely new language ecosystem. Luckily, the very week before, I'd started learning a bit of Java on the side. I still had to learn some tricks, like managing installations of different versions of Java and Gradle - SDKMAN! really came in clutch here, but to use this tool I had to work in WSL, because it only supports Linux, which meant I did have to figure out how to set up IntelliJ in WSL, but that was fine with me because my existing development setup for JavaScript is already entirely WSL-based.