[jimbokun]

Java is also a language with extensive library support, and some of the most sophisticated tooling and virtual machines with state virtual machine and garbage collection implementations of any language. The most recent versions of the language are much more programmer friendly than previous versions, greatly cutting the expressibility gap with other languages.

Just stay away from Spring, and you can have a nice development experience.

[bluGill]

The topic here isn't modern Java, it is last 90s early 2000s java. Spring was either not invented yet, but the thought process behind it was already in place, or the new hotness everyone needed to know.