Going Back to Java — From Heart, Not Hype

So, here's the thing — I learned Java back in college like most of us did. But then life happened, and I rarely got to use it in a real-world project.

I pivoted into front-end work and bounced between PHP, .NET, and Ruby on Rails mostly.

I worked in a few companies on Java but haven't worked on building a project from scratch. Recently at Oracle, I touched Java again -writing test cases and fixing bits of code but Nothing too wild.

But this time, I’ve decided to build a side project in Java.

Why?

No big reason. Honestly, the heart wants what it wants. As an engineer, if I’m not putting myself in the shoes of a beginner from time to time, then what’s the point? Growth only happens when you push yourself into discomfort — and Java is exactly that for me right now.

So, what’s the progress so far?

✅ Spring Boot framework set up

✅ Project structure and installation done

✅ Register/Login module - done

✅ PostgresSQL database setup is done

What’s next?

⏩ Role-based auth

⏩ A few APIs to hook up

How am I learning?

1 . YouTube videos

2 . ChatGPT (yeah, this thing right here)

And yes — I’ll admit it:

There’s been a lot of copy-pasting, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of banging my head against the wall. But slowly, things are starting to click. I’m understanding the why behind the what.

But good to be back to backend code. If this would be NodeJS then it will be easy-peasy for me.

The North Star?

A clean backend in Java (Spring Boot) and a front-end in ReactJS.

Let’s see where this goes. If nothing else, I’m rediscovering the fun of being a beginner again — and honestly, that feels kind of great.