Scala + Spring MVC = True? (Part 2)

This is the second part in a series of articles about mixing Scala and Spring MVC. In the first post we looked at how to set up a Scala-Java Maven project and we saw how well Spring MVC translates over to Scala in a very simple example. In this post we will continue with our exploration of Spring MVC and Scala by extending our web application that we started on in the previous post so you might want to go get the example code on GitHub so you can follow along.

Jackson JSON Processor

Lets continue our example by turning our web application into a web service returning data in JSON format. Maybe it will even grow up and be a RESTful web service someday. The typical framework of choice for processing JSON in a Spring MVC application is the Jackson JSON Processor.

Scala + Spring MVC = True?

This is the first part in a series of articles about mixing Scala and Spring MVC. In this post we will start by setting up a Maven project that can handle a Scala-Java mixed project and then we will take a look at a simple example of a web service using both Scala and Spring MVC.


Scala, is a language that has a lot of benefits and some nice characteristics and there are more and more companies that are starting to use it in their production code. Unless you have the privilege to build a brand new system all in Scala, and that new system have no need to integrate with any other code base, you will sooner or later find yourself facing issues around mixing Java and Scala code together if your current systems are written in Java. Spring MVC is a well known framework and is extensively used in a wide variety of applications and chances are you already have a well functioning Spring MVC application. Maybe you also have a lot of infrastructure build around it and integrated to it, like access control and logging for example. And since that infrastructure is written in Java you need to be able to take advantage of those available systems to make the most out of your Scala API.

Ok, so all you need to do is hook up your new shiny Scala API that you have developed. But how do you do it? And does it work? Those are some of the questions that I asked myself and I will try to share some of my findings on the subject here.

Take your REST API to the next level with HATEOAS

A pragmatic approach to understanding HATEOAS

HATEOAS, or "Hypermedia As The Engine Of Application State", is a lot about the discoverability in a RESTful API. And it is also the part that most REST APIs misses out on. This is sad because there are a lot of benefits to reap if you take your API to the next level. Especially for the developers using your API.

Some of the benefits of using HATEOAS include simpler clients, simplified authorization control on the client side, and making your API self-documenting. If you are all new to the concept then Martin Fowler's article on the RESTful maturity model is a good start. To summarize it, the model defines four levels of maturity of the RESTfulness of an API:

1. One URI, one HTTP method
2. Multiple resources instead of a single endpoint
3. Use of HTTP verbs
4. Discoverability by using hypermedia

This model can help us understand the ideas behind REST and to fully experience the "glory of REST" the API must pass all four levels. The last level is what HATEOAS is all about and I will spend the rest of this post to discuss a somewhat pragmatic approach to how you can bring HATEOAS to your REST API.* Before we move on it is also worth mentioning another good article about the topic written by Rickard Öberg that you also might want to check out.