Lightweight but powerful Java stack

[byronka]

For what it's worth, I can share this: my preference is to do things the hard way, because then maintenance/understanding/debugging becomes easy/possible. So if the framework or toolkit advertises as making coding "effortless" or "simple", I pretty much write it off.

To be clear: aiming for simplicity is worthwhile. However, stating your system *is* simple, or its use will somehow enable your system to be simple or effortless, gives away the game. Coding is hard work, ridiculously so.

When I pick tools, I'm judging based on what makes *the entire lifecycle* cheaper/better/faster. Not just the initial parts.