POJO-Based Solutions for LDAP Access: One Good, One Better

y keeping each class focused on a single responsibility, plain old Java object (POJO)-based application development improves attributes such as readability, testability, and maintainability, which increases overall software quality. Nevertheless, non-trivial applications need to deal with concerns other than primary business logic. Failing to cleanly address the multiple concerns involved with such applications could lead to classes that take on too many responsibilities. Dependency injection (DI), annotation, and aspect-oriented programming (AOP) are three proven techniques that can help manage these complexities and ensure that POJOs remain true POJOs (click here for a good summary on how they do so).

To demonstrate these techniques, this article compares two solutions for reading LDAP-stored configuration data, a common application configuration requirement. The first uses Spring LDAP, which benefits from dependency injection, and the second takes advantage of Java annotation and AOP. You will learn not only how to address this common configuration need, but you also will see how following sound design principles leads to better solutions and why advanced language features help.