Spring in Action [Paperback]

Craig Walls (Author), Ryan Breidenbach (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 2007

Spring in Action 2E is an expanded, completely updated second edition of the best selling Spring in Action. Written by Craig Walls, one of Manning's best writers, this book covers the exciting new features of Spring 2.0, which was released in October 2006.

Spring is a lightweight container framework that represents an exciting way to build enterprise components with simple Java objects. By employing dependency injection and AOP, Spring encourages loosely coupled code and enables plain-old Java objects with capabilities that were previously reserved for EJBs. This book is a hands-on, example-driven exploration of the Spring Framework. Combining short code snippets and an ongoing example developed throughout the book, it shows readers how to build simple and efficient J2EE applications, how to solve persistence problems, handle asynchronous messaging, create and consume remote services, build web applications, and integrate with most popular web frameworks. Readers will learn how to use Spring to write simpler, easier to maintain code so they can focus on what really matters-- critical business needs.

Spring in Action, 2E is for Java developers who are looking for ways to build enterprise-grade applications based on simple Java objects, without resorting to more complex and invasive EJBs. Even hard-core EJB users will find this book valuable as Spring in Action, 2E will describe ways to use EJB components alongside Spring. Software architects will also find Spring in Action, 2E useful as they assess and apply lightweight techniques prescribed by Spring. and learn how Spring can be applied at the various layers of enterprise applications.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Craig Walls is a professional software developer with over 15 years of experience in several industries, including telecommunications, finance, retail, and education. He's currently the software developer at SpringSource. He is the author of Spring in Action and XDoclet in Action (published by Manning) and is an avid proponent of Spring, open-source, and agile development. He's a popular author and a frequent speaker at user groups and conferences. Craig lives in Plano, Texas.

Breidenbach has developed Java web applications for the past five years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 650 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; Second Edition edition (August 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933988134
• ISBN-13: 978-1933988139
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 103 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Spring into action with Spring in Action March 16, 2005

By Robert S. Sfeir

Format:Paperback

Information on the web about Spring can be found if you searched enough. The problem is that there was never any kind of clear guide and process by which you could either learn or make good use of the features in Spring.

I spent the better part of 2 hours last weekend at the bookstore reading through some chapters of Spring in Action and Spring PRO. I had already looked at Spring Live and was just too fond of it. Spring PRO turned out to be as dry a reading as the paper it's printed on. Sure it's got a lot of information, but geez, who needs that much, and who can read all of it when it's so hard to stay awake during the reading?

Spring Live offered something the other books didn't:

1- It's easy to read. The Authors, Craig Walls and Ryan Breidenbach, have a pretty good sense of humor, and has obviously put great effort in using good examples which everyone can understand. If you don't know how a student class registration works, you probably didn't go to school. I could have done without the Knight and singing what ever examples, but hey, they didn't hurt anything and got the message through.

2- The book flows in the natural way one would expect to work with Spring. I like the sequence of chapters, as Craig and Ryan layed them out. They start with a quick yet fairly thorough Spring startup, and run from there into wiring, AOP, dao and on down to complete the project. it just works and makes sense, and I don't feel like I'm left wondering about something. They always seem to get to what you need to know as you think about it.

While SiA didn't have the depth of Spring Pro, it still covered everything and then some, with accuracy with what you need to know. It's written from the standpoint, at least in my opinion, that you're a smart engineer, this is not your first time looking at Java or a framework, so they tell you what's going on, and let you figure out things further if you want to and when you need to. You're not plastered with a bazillion pages of details, leaving you skimming page after page for what you want to know. Spring Live just lacks in details, and seems more driven towards those who want to integrate Spring with other frameworks like Struts, and just seems a little too happy on self promoting the author's own tools.

I don't know what these stupid low rated reviews are talking about, it seems they were posted before the book was even published. Sad.

If you want to get going with Spring the right way, get this book and don't waste your money and time on anything else.

Hope this helps.

R

60 of 65 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not up to Manning standards August 13, 2011

By J. Braun

Format:Paperback

This is not a book to learn Spring, this is a book to learn about Spring. It is like trying to learn farming by looking out of a car window as you drive through Iowa while reading a brochure about tractors. Lots of facts but little understanding.

If you are a person who likes a book that builds a project to show how all the parts fit together this is not the book for you. There are only snippets to illustrate the points discussed. It was irritating that the examples were of knights and minstrels playing saxophones rather than a realistic business case. Even when I tried to put the snippets together there were contradictions and errors. The source code is not especially helpful because it is not organized in any way that my installation of Eclipse is aware of. Maybe learning by debugging is a new paradigm.

Lastly, you had better be a mid-level Java programmer if you want to understand all of the references the author makes. There is probably a lot of good information here and I'm thinking it would make a good 2nd book on Spring or a quick reference to a particular feature. However as a book to learn Spring from square one this is sadly lacking and not what I expect from Manning.

One last note if there are any authors reading this. Please adopt the standard practice of putting a path statement above each code example. See the books from The Pragmatic Programmers series for how this is done. It would clarify exactly how these things fit together in a simple and elegant manner.

42 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent coverage and an easy read March 9, 2005

By Lasse Koskela

Format:Paperback

There's been a bit of a rush of books about the Spring Framework recently with a number of publishers releasing their own titles one after another. Without having read those other books, I feel confident in saying "Spring in Action" won't let you down. It's a wonderful introduction to the framework and a handy reference for those desperate moments with the Spring configuration files.

What I especially like about "Spring in Action" is the style of writing. The book is largely about how to configure this and that and still I read most of the book in one sitting. The text flows well and the humor sprinkled throughout adds a nice touch. The other good things about this book include a good coverage of the Spring Framework itself. Only some parts of the Acegi security framework have been left out, as far as I can tell, and those features (ACL's and run-as) are not what I'd call essential so it didn't bother me much. In addition, the authors give a good comparison (brief, but a good overview) of Spring and other technologies and frameworks such as EJB, Struts, WebWork, Tapestry, PicoContainer, HiveMind, etc. Furthermore, the authors show you how to integrate with these other frameworks (except for the other IoC containers) and view technologies like JSP, JSF, Velocity and FreeMarker. Add to that, the index looks very comprehensive which is an important detail for a book that one might use as a reference afterwards.

So, what separates this book from perfection? For one it had a lot of little typos, the text did exhibit a bit of repeat (didn't I just read this sentence on the previous page?) here and there, and I feel like mixing multiple ViewResolvers was covered too lightly. I don't consider these to be big issues, though, and I won't hesitate for a second in recommending "Spring in Action" for someone looking to get started with the framework.