A talk given at JavaCro 2016 by Roko Roić and Matija Capan

1. HOW TO PICK A FUTURE
PROOF JAVA ARCHITECTURE
FOR THE NEXT 10+ YEARS?

2. Roko Roić
Advisor @
King ICT
Matija Capan
Chief architect @
King ICT

3. „People who live in the present often wind up
exploiting the present to an extent that it starts
removing the possibility of having a future.”
[Alan Kay, UCLA/MIT/Atari/Turing award]

4. THE PROBLEM? THINGS CHANGE
MAKING IT HARD TO STAY ON TARGET
WITHIN 10+ YEARS. EVEN IN AGILE
PROMOTED EVOLVING
ARCHITECTURES. EVEN IF YOU DECIDE
„AS LATE AS POSSIBLE”.

5. Goals of this talk
 Define sustainability and reasons for even
proposing this approach
 View the problem from multiple angles and
put it in plain sight
 Propose an approach for long term Java
architectures

6. NEEDS TO
RUN FOR
DECADE(S)
NEEDS
FUNCTIONAL
UPGRADES FOR
THE ENTIRE
LIFESPAN
NEEDS
GROWING
SCALABILITY
FOR THE ENTIRE
LIFESPAN
NEEDS TO
WORK IN A
CHANGING
ENVIRONMENT

7. Changing environment
Problem areas
Maintaining knowledge
Building scalability in

8. Changing environment
Problem areas
Maintaining knowledge
Building scalability in

9. Changing environment
Problem areas
Maintaining knowledge
Building scalability in

10. THE SOLUTION, PLEASE? JUST THE
APPROACH TODAY, BUILD YOUR OWN
SOLUTION

11. WE ARE GOING TO DO THIS
BOTTOM UP SO PLEASE BEAR
WITH US 

12. “Software architecture is the collection of decisions
affecting the system’s quality attributes; which have
global effects and are hardest to change. Software
architecture provides the frame within which the
design (code) is built.”
Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz in Agile Architecture

13. FACT: JAVA 7 WAS MADE AVAILABLE
IN JULY 2011. AND MADE DEAD IN
APRIL 2015.
LET’S START WITH THE
RUNTIME. JVM? WHICH
VERSION?

14. FACT: JAVA IS THE NEW COBOL. IT WILL STICK LIKE SOMETHING
YOU PICKED UP ON A BACHELOR’S PARTY
UP THE LADDER IS THE
LANGUAGE. THERE’S MORE
THAN 50 ON THE JVM.
FACT: TIOBE INDEX, JOB MARKET INDEX, COLLEGE EDUCATION
– ALL PREFER JAVA TO OTHER JVM LANGUAGES

15. FACT: THERE IS THE EE AND THE SE
APPROACH. EACH WILL LIVE TO TELL, BUT
WHAT ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS TO THE
OVERALL SOLUTION?
WHICH JAVA EDITION WILL HELP ME
STAY ON TARGET FOR THE NEXT 10+
YEARS?

16. FACT: THERE’S THOUSANDS OF FRAMEWORKS
AND MODULES AROUND, WE’LL TRY TO GIVE
SOME GUIDANCE ON PICKING THE
SUSTAINABLE ONES.
LET’S BE HONEST, DEVELOPERS DO
NOT DEVELOP REALLY THAT MUCH.
THEY USE FRAMEWORKS AND
MODULES.

17. IS THERE
AN ESCAPE
HATCH?
TRACK
RECORD OF
BACKWARD
COMPATIBLITY
IS THERE AN
ECOSYSTEM
AROUND IT?
IS IT EASY FOR
A JUNIOR TO
LEARN?
COMMUNITY
SIZE &
ENGAGEMENT
DO I REALLY
NEED IT?

18. FACT: WEB IS THE STANDARD, BUT WITHOUT
STANDARDISATION. KEEP IT SIMPLE,
BOOTSTRAP SHOULD BE ENOUGH.
USER INTERFACE APPROACH? WEB,
NATIVE DESKTOP, MOBILE, HYBRID
DESKTOP, HYBRID MOBILE, … IT
USED TO BE SO SIMPLE

19. NO SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE IS
AN ISLAND. IT SHARES SPACES
WITH ITS SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

20. APPLICATION MIDDLEWARE
Embedded HTTP serverArchitecture based on BPM or similar
Architecture based on the app server over
JVM
Do you NEED to use the features of the app
server?
Can you afford scaling the server up?
JUST THE APP SERVER ADVANCED MIDDLEWARE NO MIDDLEWARE
Can you afford scaling the server up?

21. INTEGRATION MIDDLEWARE
Higher operating costSmaller operating cost
DIRECT INTEGRATION ESB APPROACH
Difficult to upgrade

22. FINAL WORDS…

23. TAKEWAYS BY PROBLEM AREA
Use the Microservices architecture
(where applicable)
Use Java as the default languageUse the latest JVM
Go light on the APP middleware
Be wary of frontend frameworks
CHANGING
ENVIRONMENTS
MAINTAINING
KNOWLEDGE
BUILDING SCALABILITY
IN
Do not build your own frameworks,
unless you are Google

24. AND ONE MORE THING…

25. STAY
CONSERVATIVE!