Upgrade Java 6 to Java 11 with Dropwizard 2.1.12 (AB-183)

[devin-ai-integration]

Summary

Upgrades the DropwizardEmployee project from Java 6 to Java 11, including a Dropwizard framework upgrade from 1.0.5 to 2.1.12 and all Maven plugin version bumps.

Key changes:

• Java: <source>1.6</source>/<target>1.6</target> → <release>11</release>
• Dropwizard: 1.0.5 → 2.1.12 (decoupled BOM version from ${project.version}, added dropwizard-dependencies BOM)
• @NotEmpty import: org.hibernate.validator.constraints.NotEmpty → javax.validation.constraints.NotEmpty (old import removed in Hibernate Validator 6.x)
• EmployeeDAO.findAll(): Added explicit cast to Query<Employee> to satisfy Hibernate 5.x's stricter generics on AbstractDAO.list()
• Test migration: JUnit 3 (TestCase) → JUnit 5 (Jupiter), since Dropwizard 2.x ships JUnit 5
• Shade plugin: Added module-info.class exclusion to prevent conflicts in uber-JAR
• All Maven plugins bumped to current versions (shade 3.6.0, surefire 3.2.5, compiler 3.13.0, etc.)

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

Review & Testing Checklist for Human

• Verify the app starts and serves requests. The only test is assertTrue(true) — CI passing does NOT validate runtime behavior. Run java -jar target/DropwizardEmployee-1.0.5.jar server example.yml and hit GET /employee and POST /employee to confirm the Dropwizard 2.x upgrade didn't break request handling or Hibernate session management.
• Review the unchecked cast in EmployeeDAO.findAll() — the @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") cast from Query<?> to Query<Employee> is a common Hibernate 5 pattern but masks potential type errors. Consider whether a typed CriteriaQuery approach would be safer long-term.
• Confirm @NotEmpty validation behavior is unchanged — javax.validation.constraints.NotEmpty should behave identically to the old Hibernate-specific one, but verify that the template and defaultName fields in EmployeeConfiguration still reject blank values on startup.

Notes

• The Dropwizard version jump (1.0.5 → 2.1.12) is large. While the codebase is small and compiles cleanly, there may be subtle behavioral changes in Jetty, Jersey, or Hibernate session handling that only surface at runtime.
• Jira: AB-183

Link to Devin session: https://app.devin.ai/sessions/c00be4a91f574eef82605444f7c817ff
Requested by: @pqn

[devin-ai-integration]

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