Java and Spring Data JPA: Easy SQL Data Access

Accessing data repositories in various applications programming languages typically involves writing of tedious boilerplate lines of code. Some application development frameworks such as Spring have tried to make the experience more succinct by providing abstraction layers such as HibernateTemplate and JdbcTemplate, etc. Despite these APIs, the developers still spend a lot time writing repetitive code than concentrating on implementing business requirements. Developers at Spring, led by Oliver Gierke introduced Spring Data JPA which “aims to significantly improve the implementation of data access layers by reducing the effort to the amount that's actually needed. As a developer you write your repository interfaces, including custom finder methods, and Spring will provide the implementation automatically”.

Spring Data JPA provides a powerful, out-of-the-box alternative to creating your own DAO framework. You declare custom repository operations on an interface, and the framework generates dynamic implementations (not code generation) automatically, based on conventions around method names. As part of the presentation, we'll also review a demo to look at Spring Java configuration (as opposed to XML configuration), and investigate the @Profile annotation – configuration details which may make life a bit easier in various ways when setting up unit testing of our repository classes, using out-of-the-box alternative to creating DAO framework, how to create custom repositories, pagination and support for custom queries among other features.

Miya W. Longwe, Staples

Miya W. Longwe is a Senior Software Engineer and Tech Lead at Staples, Inc. where he is currently working on an initiative to re-platform the company’s ecommerce architecture to offer platform-driven, modular products that can be quickly customized, enhanced, and branded as needed.

Miya has been a software professional since 1997 and has expertise in rapid development methodologies, project estimation, software construction practices, performance tuning, system integration, and third-party contract management. His 16 years software development career includes working for large companies to small startups, building solutions for enterprises and consumers, working with a broad range of technologies.