Java Spring: Getting Started with Java Backend API Development

Do you have any experience with Java? Or maybe building a backend API with Rails or Django? Getting into Java API development may seem like a challenge, but there are plenty of tools out there to make the process a little bit more stream-lined like Rails or Django. In this short tutorial I’m going to show you how to get a basic Java API setup and running with a PostgreSQL relational database.

First thing we need to do is make sure we have all the necessary tools downloaded and installed. You need to make sure that you have a Java JDK installed on your development machine. Oracle has excellent documentation to get it installed on your machine.

You can start here: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/overview/index.html

For my code editor I use Visual Studio Code, though Eclipse is also excellent for Java development.

In Visual Studio, you are going to want to install these Extensions, they’ll make your life a lot easier as a java developer:

Spring Boot Dashboard

Spring Boot Tools

Spring Initializr Java Support (This will allow you to generate a spring project without using start.spring.io)

Java IDE

Java Extension Pack

Java Dependency Viewer

and Debugger for Java