Where to start with MicroProfile?

[Tim Cooke]

I've been following with interest the conversations around MicroProfile this week, especially around the idea that it serves as a legitimate alternative to Spring. I've long had a nag that Spring has become a beast that attempts to do "all the things" when I usually only need it to do a small set of things, so the idea that there's a realistic alternative fills me with curiosity.

For someone like me who's very familiar with Java and it's enterprise ecosystem, including Spring, what would you recommend as a starter kit of resources to get up and running with MicroProfile?

[Tim Moores]

I'd recommend https://start.microprofile.io/. Pick MP 4.0, OpenLiberty as runtime, and include samples for all APIs. That'll get you a demo project which you can run right out of the box, and source code you can study to see how the different pieces fit together.

That's how I got started when I felt should take the plunge, and it's really easy to get started with. Of course, you can pick some other runtime; I just happened to use OpenLiberty and was happy with it.

Also check out the OpenLiberty blog where you'll find lots of useful information on other features of OpenLiberty (it is a full JEE server, after all), and how to push MP APIs further.

[Emily Jiang]

In addition to what Andy said, I recommend you go through some guides on openliberty.io. It only takes you 15-30 mins to grasp any MicroProfile or Java EE or Jakarta EE technology. You can first browse this guide and then click on `Run On Cloud`, which will spin off an environment for you so that you don't need to install anything on your devices.

Once you have tried out MicroProfile starter and Open Liberty guides, you can also use Open Liberty starter  to create you cloud-native applications with all of APIs available to you. All you need to do is to write your business logics.