Spring Boot

A collection of Java backend projects and hands-on exercises developed while learning and practicing Spring Boot.

This repository documents my progress with Spring Boot and backend development, covering everything from Spring MVC and Thymeleaf to REST APIs, JPA/Hibernate, Spring Data JPA, MySQL, and Spring Security.

🚀 Topics Covered

• Spring Boot fundamentals
• Spring MVC
• Thymeleaf
• Form handling
• Data binding
• Bean Validation
• REST APIs
• CRUD operations
• Spring Data JPA
• Hibernate / JPA
• Entity relationships
• MySQL
• Spring Security
• Authentication and authorization
• JDBC authentication
• Maven
• Application configuration
• Dependency injection
• Exception handling

🛠️ Technologies

Technology	Purpose
Java	Programming language
Spring Boot	Backend framework
Spring MVC	Web application development
Thymeleaf	Server-side HTML rendering
Spring Data JPA	Database access
Hibernate	ORM
MySQL	Relational database
Spring Security	Authentication and authorization
Jakarta Validation	Input validation
Maven	Build and dependency management

📂 Project Structure

This repository contains multiple exercises and applications developed throughout my Spring Boot learning process.

The projects cover different areas of backend development rather than representing a single production application.

SpringBoot/
│
├── src/
│   ├── main/
│   │   ├── java/
│   │   └── resources/
│   │
│   └── test/
│
├── .mvn/
├── mvnw
├── mvnw.cmd
└── pom.xml

📚 What I Have Practiced

Spring MVC

Hands-on practice with:

• Controllers
• Request mappings
• @RequestParam
• @PathVariable
• @ModelAttribute
• Model attributes
• Thymeleaf templates
• Form processing
• Redirects
• Validation errors

Example MVC flow:

Browser
   ↓
Controller
   ↓
Service
   ↓
Database
   ↓
Model
   ↓
Thymeleaf
   ↓
HTML Response

REST APIs

Practice building RESTful endpoints using:

• @RestController
• @GetMapping
• @PostMapping
• @PutMapping
• @PatchMapping
• @DeleteMapping
• @RequestBody
• @PathVariable
• HTTP status codes
• JSON request and response bodies

Typical REST architecture:

Client
  ↓
REST Controller
  ↓
Service
  ↓
Repository
  ↓
Database

JPA & Hibernate

Database persistence practice using:

• @Entity
• @Table
• @Id
• @GeneratedValue
• @OneToMany
• @ManyToOne
• @JoinColumn
• JPQL
• EntityManager
• Transactions
• Hibernate ORM

Spring Data JPA

Practice with:

• JpaRepository
• CRUD operations
• Derived query methods
• Custom queries
• Sorting
• Finding entities by fields
• Repository-based data access

Validation

Practice with Jakarta Bean Validation, including:

@NotBlank
@NotNull
@Email
@Size
@Pattern
@Valid

Validation is used to prevent invalid input from reaching the application's business logic.

Spring Security

Practice with:

• Form login
• Authentication
• Authorization
• Roles and authorities
• Custom login pages
• Login processing
• Logout
• JDBC authentication
• Password encoding
• Protected endpoints
• Role-based access control

Example:

User
 ↓
Login
 ↓
Spring Security
 ↓
Authentication
 ↓
Authorization
 ↓
Protected Resource

MySQL

Practice connecting Spring Boot applications to MySQL and working with relational data through JPA and Hibernate.

🏗️ Common Architecture

The projects in this repository follow layered backend architecture:

Controller
    ↓
Service
    ↓
Repository
    ↓
JPA / Hibernate
    ↓
MySQL

Each layer has a specific responsibility:

Controller Handles HTTP requests and responses.

Service Contains business/application logic.

Repository Handles database operations.

Entity Represents persistent database data.

DTO Separates API request/response data from entities when appropriate.

🎯 Learning Goals

This repository is part of my ongoing development as a Java backend developer.

The main goals are to build a strong understanding of:

• Java
• Spring Boot
• Backend architecture
• REST API development
• Database design
• JPA/Hibernate
• Authentication and authorization
• Clean separation of responsibilities
• Building complete backend applications

📈 Learning Progression

The projects in this repository represent a progression from basic Spring concepts toward more complete backend applications.

Java
  ↓
Spring Boot
  ↓
Spring MVC
  ↓
Thymeleaf
  ↓
JPA / Hibernate
  ↓
Spring Data JPA
  ↓
REST APIs
  ↓
Validation
  ↓
Spring Security
  ↓
Authentication & Authorization
  ↓
Larger Backend Applications

🔮 Future Learning

Planned areas of exploration include:

• Automated testing
• JWT authentication
• Advanced REST API design
• Global exception handling
• DTO mapping
• API documentation
• Microservices
• Spring Cloud
• Docker
• Kafka
• Kubernetes
• Cloud deployment

👤 Author

Beatrix Blaine

GitHub: https://github.com/BeatrixBlaine

---

This repository represents my hands-on journey learning Java and Spring Boot backend development.