Preface

The best keeps getting better. More than a dozen years ago, Spring entered the Java development scene with the ambitious goal of simplifying enterprise Java development. It challenged the heavyweight programming models of the time with a simpler and lighter programming model based on plain old Java objects.

Now, several years and many releases later, we see that Spring has had a tremendous impact on enterprise application development. It has become a de facto standard framework for countless Java projects and has had an impact on the evolution of some of the specifications and frameworks that it originally set out to replace. It’d be hard to deny that the current Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) specification may have turned out very differently had Spring not challenged earlier versions of the EJB spec.

But Spring itself continues to evolve and improve upon itself, always seeking to make the difficult development tasks simpler and empower Java developers with innovative features. Where Spring had first set out to challenge the status quo, Spring now has leapt ahead and is paving trails in Java application development.