Retrospective

January

In the beginning of 2014, I took the initial version of my time series MongoDB aggregation example and pass it through a multistage optimization process, from indexing to advanced data-modelling:

• MongoDB time series: Introducing the aggregation framework
• A beginner’s guide to MongoDB performance turbocharging
• MongoDB and the fine art of data modelling

February

In February, I starting developing FlexyPool, the ultimate connection pool sizing utility. This was a great opportunity to dig into Queuing Theory and the following articles capture some of my findings:

• The anatomy of Connection Pooling
• FlexyPool, reactive connection pooling
• Professional connection pool sizing

May

After finishing FlexyPool, I decided investing in a Data knowledge stack, and so I started working on my Hibernate Master Class training material.

The Hibernate Master Class allowed me to dig into a great variety of JPA/Hibernate features, some of which are lesser known:

• A beginner’s guide to JPA/Hibernate entity state transitions
• Hibernate Identity, Sequence and Table (Sequence) generator
• Hibernate hidden gem: the pooled-lo optimizer
• A beginner’s guide to JPA/Hibernate flush strategies
• The dark side of Hibernate AUTO flush
• The anatomy of Hibernate dirty checking
• EAGER fetching is a code smell

Almost at the time, I started answering Hibernate StackOverfow questions, and I accumulated a reputation on 8918 points.

August

In August, I was elected One of August’s Most Interesting Developers.

If you wonder what happened with my open-source Java Transactions Book, you can take a look on the Concurrency Control section of the Hibernate Master Class:

• A beginner’s guide to database locking and the lost update phenomena
• Preventing lost updates in long conversations
• Logical vs physical clock optimistic locking
• Optimistic locking auto-retry
• Hibernate application-level repeatable reads
• Hibernate collections optimistic locking
• An entity modelling strategy for scaling optimistic locking
• The downside of version-less optimistic locking
• A beginner’s guide to transaction isolation levels in enterprise Java

I decided to include my knowledge about transactions in the Master Class material since you can’t separate transactions out of the run-time environment anyway.

September

In September my blog’s just turned one.

December

Although I didn’t win the Most interesting developer competition, I’m proud I managed to finish on the 3rd place.

2014 most viewed articles

My top 5 posts were:

Plans for 2015

I plan on finishing the Hibernate Master Class training and further complete the Data knowledge stack with other database access related technologies.

I want to get a Hibernate and a JPA gold badge on StackOverflow.

I want to read more books than I did in 2014.