How did Spring change over 16 years?

First release 1st October 2002

Spring in 2003

Spring contains a lot of functionality and features, which are well-organized in seven modules shown in the diagram below. This section discusses each the of modules in turn.

Spring could potentially be a one-stop-shop for all your enterprise applications ...

Reference

Spring in 2018

From configuration to security, web apps to big data – whatever the infrastructure needs of your application may be, there is a Spring Project to help you build it. Start small and use just what you need – Spring is modular by design.

Spring is a portfolio of projects that includes

• spring boot
• spring cloud
• spring for android
• ...

many others and one of them is Spring Framework

The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration
model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment platform.

Reference

Criticism

http://samatkinson.com/why-i-hate-spring/

To many magics? Is it better to not use it, or maybe understand?

Tips

1. How to list all beans?

Arrays.stream(ctx.getBeanDefinitionNames()).forEach(System.out::println);

2. Always autowire using constructor args and final fields

private final Engine engine;

Car(Engine engine) {
}

3. How to see all dependencies

./mvnw dependency:tree --projects module-name

4. How to pass command line parameter to Spring Boot

1.x version

mvnw spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments=--server.port=8081

2.x version

mvnw spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments=--server.port=8081

If you would like to explore more

Spring Magic

Spring Guides