I suppose it depends on the programming tasks you do. If you are working on stuff like recompiling large codebases all day- then yes, a fast CPU and and lots of RAM will really help. If you are working more on scripting stuff, then maybe the fastest CPU isn't really needed, rather more RAM. I just bought myself a Ryzen 9950x deal from a local Microcenter. I will run handbrake on ripped files which this CPU is really good at.
I worked on a Spring Boot application that would take more than a minute to start. Not Spring's fault, IIUC, but nevertheless a focus killer.
A minute? What was taking so long? Spring itself is only a few seconds (as you said that’s not the issue).
That sounds horrible to work on.
If you have many beans that does IO, startup will be slower. For example, just removing sql/database initialization can shave off a second.