Top all-time · #1276
Nicolas Fränkel
Personal blog · blog.frankel.chprogrammingweb
Nicolas Fränkel writes A Java geek, a personal blog at blog.frankel.ch about programming and web. Since 2010, 54 different Hacker News readers have linked it 290 times, most often “My final take on Gradle (vs. Maven)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this Java-focused blog, which covers Kotlin, Spring Boot, Kubernetes and testing. Linked posts include a Gradle-vs-Maven opinion piece, annotation-free Spring, and self-contained executable JARs.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- Opinion piece on Gradle vs Maven, which one commenter recommends as the article to read.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Nicolas Fränkel's blog
Most-linked posts?
- My final take on Gradle (vs. Maven)7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2023-08-08
- Leverage the richness of HTTP status codes3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-24
- Discuss the Problem, Not the Solution3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-10-23
- Back to basics: accessing Kubernetes pods3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-08-07
- Learning by Doing: An HTTP API with Rust3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-01-29
- First impressions about Graal VM2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-04-29
- Rust and the JVM2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-07-18
- On Project Loom, the Reactive model and coroutines2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-06-21
- The first rule of distributed systems is "Don't distribute your system"2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-04-01
- Programming by contract on the JVM2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-02-26
What Hacker News says?
https://blog.frankel.ch/ aka a Java Geek Mainly Java as I was a Java developer when I started Now a lot of Kotlin, Spring Boot, Kubernetes, Testing, ...
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What is your blog and why should I read it?”Submitted Teeing, a hidden gem in the Java API as a story · 242 points
HN discussionFor everyone (predictably) discussing Gradle vs Maven vs x, I recommend the (linked) article/opinion piece by the author: https://blog.frankel.ch/final-take-gradle/
Comment linking /final-take-gradle/
on “Modern Java/JVM Build Practices”Submitted Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's as a story · 154 points
HN discussion> Case in point: The length of the README in this "Modern gradle" reference repo - that's a lot of complexity just to get dependencies, compilation, tests, and packaging. I prefer to copy-pasta some XML fragments and move on to solving the high ROI business-value issues. The repo is a reference Gradle and Maven repo. The author, in his linked opinion piece, agrees with you: > Gradle brought the two above great featu…
Comment linking /final-take-gradle/
on “Modern Java/JVM Build Practices”Submitted Backend for Front-end as a story · 153 points
HN discussionInterestingly, the README's author seems to agree with you, at least in part[1]. [1] https://blog.frankel.ch/final-take-gradle/
Comment linking /final-take-gradle/
on “Modern Java/JVM Build Practices”Submitted Rise and fall of JVM languages as a story · 141 points
HN discussionProbably a reference to Clojure's arrow operator: https://blog.frankel.ch/learning-clojure/2/ Something like a(b(c(d(e(7)))))) in Javascript could be written (-> 7 e d c b a) in Clojure?
Comment linking /learning-clojure/2/
on “Why is D3 so Verbose?”Submitted In Defense of XML as a story · 136 points
HN discussionIndeed, JARs are just ZIP files (and can even be uncompressed), so this trick works to make self-executable JAR files that consist of a shell script concatenated with the actual JAR. https://blog.frankel.ch/creating-self-contained-executable-j... https://coderwall.com/p/ssuaxa/how-to-make-a-jar-file-linux-...
Comment linking /creating-self-contained-executable-jars/
on “What's the most portable way to include binary blobs in an executable?”Submitted Distribution of JVM Desktop Applications as a story · 133 points
HN discussionI tried. It works in theory: https://blog.frankel.ch/tokensparsamkeit-coding-assistants/#... Results depend on the model, of course, and your computer is the limit. Mine wasn't up to the task, unfortunately.
Comment linking /tokensparsamkeit-coding-assistants/
on “Ask HN: Has anyone replaced Claude/GPT with a local model for daily coding?”Submitted First impressions about Graal VM as a story · 124 points
HN discussionThere are ways of writing Spring without annotations (or XML config): https://blog.frankel.ch/annotation-free-spring/ Granted, they may not be used much, but if you have an existing application it's probably easier to migrate away from the annotations than to switch to a different framework altogether.
Comment linking /annotation-free-spring/
on “Helidon Níma: The first Java microservices framework based on virtual threads”Submitted Learning Clojure: comparing with Java streams as a story · 117 points
HN discussionDirect link: https://blog.frankel.ch/creating-git-shortcuts/
Comment linking /creating-git-shortcuts/
on “Creating Git Shortcuts”Submitted What I miss in Java, the perspective of a Kotlin developer as a story · 90 points
HN discussionSubmitted Using my new Raspberry Pi to run an existing GitHub Action as a story · 88 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hard Things in Computer Science as a story · 83 points
HN discussionSubmitted Java Streams and State as a story · 82 points
HN discussionSubmitted Faster Maven Builds as a story · 73 points
HN discussionSubmitted Toying with Kotlin's Context Receivers as a story · 48 points
HN discussionSubmitted Truly immutable builds as a story · 44 points
HN discussionSubmitted Inheritance and Subtyping as a story · 43 points
HN discussionSubmitted Exercises in Programming Style with higher-order functions as a story · 31 points
HN discussionSubmitted From Imperative to Functional Programming: The Dijkstra Algorithm as a story · 30 points
HN discussionSubmitted Developing your own Kubernetes controller in Java as a story · 29 points
HN discussionSubmitted Augmenting the Client with Htmx as a story · 26 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Comparison of Assertion Libraries as a story · 17 points
HN discussion
