Upgrade Java 6 to Java 11 (AB-171)

[devin-ai-integration]

Summary

Upgrades the project from Java 6 (source/target 1.6) to Java 11, including a major Dropwizard framework upgrade from 1.0.5 to 2.1.12. This brings in Hibernate 5.x, Jersey 2.41, Jetty 9.4.53, and Jackson 2.13.x transitively.

Key changes:

• pom.xml: Decoupled Dropwizard BOM from ${project.version}, pinned to 2.1.12. Added dropwizard-dependencies BOM. Replaced <source>1.6</source>/<target>1.6</target> with <release>11</release>. Upgraded all Maven plugin versions. Added module-info.class exclusion to shade plugin filter.
• EmployeeConfiguration.java: @NotEmpty import moved from deprecated org.hibernate.validator.constraints to javax.validation.constraints.
• EmployeeDAO.java: Added explicit cast of namedQuery() result from Query<?> to Query<Employee> to satisfy Dropwizard 2.x's stricter AbstractDAO.list() signature.
• AppTest.java: Migrated from JUnit 3 (TestCase) to JUnit 5 (Jupiter).

mvn clean verify passes with zero compilation errors and all tests green.

Review & Testing Checklist for Human

• Verify the EmployeeDAO unchecked cast is safe at runtime — namedQuery() returns Query<?> in Hibernate 5.x; the cast to Query<Employee> compiles but is unchecked. Confirm the named query "com.dropwizard.employee.core.Employee.findAll" returns Employee entities as expected.
• Smoke-test the application startup — run java -jar target/DropwizardEmployee-1.0.5.jar server example.yml with Java 11 and verify the server starts, GET /employee returns [], and POST /employee creates a record. The existing test suite is a single assertTrue(true) and provides no real coverage.
• Review Dropwizard 1.x → 2.x behavioral changes — this is a major version jump. Check the Dropwizard 2.0 migration guide for any breaking changes relevant to this app (Hibernate session handling, Jersey resource lifecycle, etc.).

Notes

• No removed Java EE module replacements (JAXB, JAX-WS, etc.) were needed — the codebase doesn't use them directly.
• No obsolete JVM flags, Dockerfiles, or CI configs were found to update.
• The dropwizard-dependencies BOM was added alongside dropwizard-bom per prescriptive guidance to ensure all transitive dependency versions are managed consistently.

Link to Devin session: https://app.devin.ai/sessions/f0163cfb9fbb4216a2a945e93addeea6
Requested by: @pqn

[devin-ai-integration]

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