Embracing the Annotation Revolution
Spring Framework 4.3 - Embracing the Annotation Revolution The Java development community had fully embraced annotations, and Spring Framework 4.3 took this to its logical conclusion. The framework became more intuitive and less magical, which paradoxically made it more powerful for everyday developers. The introduction of composed annotations and meta-annotations meant we could create our own semantic configuration annotations that captured business intent rather than just technical mechanics. java @Target(ElementType.TYPE) @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME) @RestController @RequestMapping("/api/v1") @Validated public @interface ApiController { String value() default ""; } @ApiController("/orders") public class OrderController { private final OrderService orderService; // Constructor injection - no @Autowired needed! public OrderC...