Rabbit & Pork

For a while, I’ve been intrigued by the growing popularity of the Spring Framework.

Like most, I had a surface understanding of its capabilities, but, recently I decided to delve deeper and actually write some code with it to learn a little more.

Spring comes with a mass of documentation and complete application samples, which is pretty good compared to some open source projects. However, it’s all a bit overwhelming for the novice who’s just walked in the door. Where do you start?

Well, I’ve persevered and cut through some of it. And, as a result I’ve compiled some very simple examples for the developer who’s never seen Spring before and wants to know where to start on day one.

I’ve bundled the code samples together with all their required dependencies into the following Spring Start - a getting started guide / tutorial for the Spring Framework. The whole thing has been tailored for use within the Eclipse IDE and takes almost no setup to get going. You should be able to step through code that uses Spring within minutes.

From the associated readme.txt:

Spring Start - “Where do I Start?” For Developers
David Caruana (david@caruana.co.uk)

11th Feb 2005 - Initial Revision

1. Introduction

This bundle provides a small set of code examples that demonstrate the core features of the Spring Framework (www.springframework.org).

You won’t find here a description of the Spring Framework or why you should use it - that is best left to the Spring developers (at their site and in resources such “J2EE Developement without EJB” by Rod Johnson).

However, you will find a collection of concise code examples that step you through the basic Spring capabilities. These samples were created during my first few days with Spring whilst trying to untangle the large amounts of documentation and complete sample applications. I hope that other developers who are also just starting out with Spring will find them useful.

I’ve concentrated on the heart of Spring to start with; Bean Factories and AOP. The samples execute stand-alone so there’s no need for a web or application container which means they’re really easy to get into. The amount of code to browse is the bare minimum.

This bundle is completely self encapsulated and includes all the required dependencies to get going. It was developed with Spring Framework 1.1.4.

I may continue to provide updated bundles in the future as I continue to learn Spring.

2. How to use this bundle?

This bundle is best used with the Eclipse IDE. Everything has been setup as an Eclipse Project and so the only step should be to import the Project:

a) Unzip the bundle to a file directory of your choice
b) Start Eclipse
c) File -> Import…
d) Select Existing Project into Workspace
e) Browse to your unzipped file directory of choice
f) Hit OK and Finish
g) The Project is now imported

At this point you can browse the source code which resides in the “src” directory or select Project | Build All to build everything.

3. Structure of the Samples

Within the “src” directory there are currently two top level packages:

ex01_bean - samples that demonstrate core Bean Factory capability
ex02_aop - samples that demonstrate core AOP capability

Within each top level package, you’ll find a sample sub-package which is typically self-contained. Each sample contains a Main.java.

Within Eclipse, you can right-click the Main.java to Run it or Debug it (more useful when learning) to step through the code or set breakpoints.

The ex01_bean package is commented, however, the ex02_aop package has yet to be commented, but the samples are still simple enough.

4. References Used

J2EE development without EJB - Rod Johnson
Spring Framework 1.1.4 Reference Guide
Spring Application Samples that come with Spring 1.1.4

5. Feedback

I’m not an expert on Spring (I’ve spent 3 days with it so far), so if you find any mistakes or can suggest improvements, please get in contact (david@caruana.co.uk).

6. Disclaimer

The enclosed examples are provided for tutorial purposes only.