Craig Walls

What's New in Spring and Spring Boot

8:30 AM MDT

In this example-driven session, we'll review several tips and tricks to make the most out of your Spring development experience. You'll see how to apply the best features of Spring and Spring Boot, including the latest and greatest features of Spring Framework 6.x and Spring Boot 3.x with an eye to what's coming in Spring 7 and Boot 4.

Spring has been the de facto standard framework for Java development for nearly two decades. Over the years, Spring has continued to evolve and adapt to meet the ever-changing requirements of software development. And for nearly half that time, Spring Boot has carried Spring forward, capturing some of the best Spring patterns as auto-configuration.

As with any framework or language that has this much history and power, there are just as many ways to get it right as there are to get it wrong. How do you know that you are applying Spring in the best way in your application?

What's New in Spring and Spring Boot

10:30 AM MDT

In this example-driven session, we'll review several tips and tricks to make the most out of your Spring development experience. You'll see how to apply the best features of Spring and Spring Boot, including the latest and greatest features of Spring Framework 6.x and Spring Boot 3.x with an eye to what's coming in Spring 7 and Boot 4.

Spring has been the de facto standard framework for Java development for nearly two decades. Over the years, Spring has continued to evolve and adapt to meet the ever-changing requirements of software development. And for nearly half that time, Spring Boot has carried Spring forward, capturing some of the best Spring patterns as auto-configuration.

As with any framework or language that has this much history and power, there are just as many ways to get it right as there are to get it wrong. How do you know that you are applying Spring in the best way in your application?

Spring Graph QL

1:00 PM MDT

In this example-driven session, we're going to look at how to implement GraphQL in Spring. You'll learn how Spring for GraphQL builds upon GraphQL Java, recognize the use-cases that are best suited for GraphQL, and how to build a GraphQL API in Spring.

Typical REST APIs deal in resources. This is fine for many use cases, but it tends to be more rigid and less efficient in others.

For example, in an shopping API, it's important to weigh how much or how little information should be provided in a request for an order resource? Should the order resource contain only order specifics, but no details about the order's line items or the products in those line items? If all relevant details is included in the response, then it's breaking the boundaries of what the resource should offer and is overkill for clients that do not need it. On the other hand, proper factoring of the resource will require that the client make multiple requests to the API to fetch relevant information that they may need.

GraphQL offers a more flexible alternative to REST, setting aside the resource-oriented model and focusing more on what a client needs. Much as how SQL allows for data from multiple tables to be selected and joined in response to a query, GraphQL offers API clients the possibility of tailoring the response to provide all of the information needed and nothing that they do not need.

Spring Graph QL

3:00 PM MDT

In this example-driven session, we're going to look at how to implement GraphQL in Spring. You'll learn how Spring for GraphQL builds upon GraphQL Java, recognize the use-cases that are best suited for GraphQL, and how to build a GraphQL API in Spring.

Typical REST APIs deal in resources. This is fine for many use cases, but it tends to be more rigid and less efficient in others.

For example, in an shopping API, it's important to weigh how much or how little information should be provided in a request for an order resource? Should the order resource contain only order specifics, but no details about the order's line items or the products in those line items? If all relevant details is included in the response, then it's breaking the boundaries of what the resource should offer and is overkill for clients that do not need it. On the other hand, proper factoring of the resource will require that the client make multiple requests to the API to fetch relevant information that they may need.

GraphQL offers a more flexible alternative to REST, setting aside the resource-oriented model and focusing more on what a client needs. Much as how SQL allows for data from multiple tables to be selected and joined in response to a query, GraphQL offers API clients the possibility of tailoring the response to provide all of the information needed and nothing that they do not need.

Introducing Spring Modulith

5:00 PM MDT

Introducing Spring Modulith

Although microservices are still a useful architectural choice, the balance of additional complexity and the advantages of microservice architecture do not necessarily work out in the benefit of all applications. While most application will benefit from improved modularity, the challenges that come with distributed computing may be too much for some applications to take on. A well-structured and modular monolithic application might be a better fit.

In this session, we'll explore Spring Modulith, a relatively new Spring library that enables developers to build well-structured Spring Boot applications, guiding them in discovering domain-driven modules, and verifying that the modular arrangement is correct. We'll also see how Spring Modulith assists with modular integration testing and documentation.

Building Intelligent Spring Applications with Spring AI

9:00 AM MDT

By now, you've no doubt noticed that Generative AI is making waves across many industries. In between all of the hype and doubt, there are several use cases for Generative AI in many software projects. Whether it be as simple as building a live chat to help your users or using AI to analyze data and provide recommendations, Generative AI is becoming a key piece of software architecture.

So how can you implement Generative AI in your projects? Let me introduce you to Spring AI.

For over two decades, the Spring Framework and its immense portfolio of projects has been making complex problems easy for Java developers. And now with the new Spring AI project, adding Generative AI to your Spring Boot projects couldn't be easier! Spring AI brings an AI client and templated prompting that handles all of the ceremony necessary to communicate with common AI APIs (such as OpenAI and Azure OpenAI). And with Spring Boot autoconfiguration, you'll be able to get straight to the point of asking questions and getting answers your application needs.

In this handson workshop, you'll build a complete Spring AIenabled application applying such techniques as prompt templating, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), conversational history, and tools invocation. You'll also learn prompt engineering techniques that can help your application get the best results with minimal “hallucinations” while minimizing cost.

Building Intelligent Spring Applications with Spring AI

11:00 AM MDT

By now, you've no doubt noticed that Generative AI is making waves across many industries. In between all of the hype and doubt, there are several use cases for Generative AI in many software projects. Whether it be as simple as building a live chat to help your users or using AI to analyze data and provide recommendations, Generative AI is becoming a key piece of software architecture.

So how can you implement Generative AI in your projects? Let me introduce you to Spring AI.

For over two decades, the Spring Framework and its immense portfolio of projects has been making complex problems easy for Java developers. And now with the new Spring AI project, adding Generative AI to your Spring Boot projects couldn't be easier! Spring AI brings an AI client and templated prompting that handles all of the ceremony necessary to communicate with common AI APIs (such as OpenAI and Azure OpenAI). And with Spring Boot autoconfiguration, you'll be able to get straight to the point of asking questions and getting answers your application needs.

In this handson workshop, you'll build a complete Spring AIenabled application applying such techniques as prompt templating, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), conversational history, and tools invocation. You'll also learn prompt engineering techniques that can help your application get the best results with minimal “hallucinations” while minimizing cost.