Spring Enterprise Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

The Spring framework is growing. While Java EE has largely been a prescription of architecture (the Java Pet Store and the Sun blueprints, for example), the Spring framework has always been about choice. Java EE focused on a best-practices-oriented solution, largely to the detriment of alternative solutions. When the Spring framework debuted, few would have agreed that Java EE represented the best-in-breed architectures of the day. Each release sees the introduction of a myriad of new features designed to both simplify and enable solutions. With Spring 2.0 and later, the Spring platform started targeting multiple platforms. The framework provided services on top of existing platforms, as always, but was decoupled from the underlying platform wherever possible. Java EE is still a major reference point, but not the only target. OSGi (a promising technology for modular architectures) has been a big part of the SpringSource strategy. Additionally, with the introduction of annotation-centric frameworks and XML schemas, SpringSource could build frameworks that effectively modeled the domain of the problem itself, in effect creating DSLs. In short order, frameworks built on top of the Spring framework emerged supporting application integration, batch processing, Flex integration, OSGi, and much more.