I forgot the codez...

Oh my. Reflection on generics. That's not always nice. So, here goes. As can be easily found, it is possible to determine the actual type of a generic class at runtime. And in the code we get a number of lists<>... and we want to sort them by class hierarchy (so, String extends Object, and thus List<String> should go after List<Object>) Our compare method then needs to look like this: compare( List left, List right) { Type type = left.getClass().getGenericSuperclass() if(type instanceof ParameterizedType) {// it is a generic   ParameterizedType pType = (ParameterizedType) type;   Type[] actualTypes = pType.getActualTypeArguments();   // and then we have an array, which in this case should be String.class and Object.class, which we can then compare   } ... } This is nice, but spring kinda has the problem that those objects *might* be more then they are... they might be AOP'd! In that case, we do not get the actual objects, but proxie...

So far I have a number of things which I don't like. Abstract classes are evil.It indicates base classes, but inheritance should never be used for code reuse. Use interfaces, factories, strategies for such stuff. Moreover, they give code that cannot be tested (easily) final should not be used, except to designate constant statics. Nothing more, as it is superfluous take-space-on-my-screen crap Builders which cannot be extended. Ideally, a builder should be separate from the value object, and the value object should be extensible. Hence, private constructors are a no-go for the value-object. The disadvantage of using builders is that it is hard to extend them properly, as they are usually not templated and thus do not use a proper signature. E.g. class OldBuilder {     int a;     OldBuilder withInt(int a )   {         this.a=a;         return this;     }     Value...