Super Boring Topic

Hi,

Yesterday, I published an article about the Assert class from Spring . And in May, at the Developer Meetup in Essen , I also talked about the class.

But actually, it’s super boring.

For those who don’t know:

It offers a series of simple “assert” methods. For example, instead of

if (someVariable == null) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("someVariable must not be null");
}

we can write:

Assert.isNotNull(someVariable, "someVariable must not be null");

Incredible.

This changes everything.

Well, not really.

But why am I writing about it at all?

This feature alone won’t make any codebase better.

It won’t make the decisive difference as to whether a codebase is “good” or not.

It’s a small thing.

But the sum of small things makes a difference.

• When I write small functions everywhere.
• When my methods are well-named.
• When I write code the way I speak.
• And when I save two lines because I use Spring’s Assert instead of an if-statement.

When I take all this into account, then our code is easier to read than if I didn’t.

It’s the sum of these things that ensure we write easily maintainable code.

And that’s why I’m making it a topic. That’s why I’m also writing a blog about such a small thing. And that’s why the topic gets a slide in my talk.

Always make your code a little better and you’ll feel the effect.

Rule the Backend,

~ Marcus