Advantages of Java Spring Framework over Other frameworks

Java Spring framework is one of the most popular open source frameworks for enterprise application development. Developed by Rod Johnson in back in 2002, it currently works with each and every framework in Java.

Spring framework provides comprehensive infrastructure support for developing Java-based applications. This framework glues together all other libraries of Java. Spring framework has many modules but Spring core is the one on which other modules work. It allows developers to build reusable, testable, high performing, loose coupling enterprise Java application.

Let’s take a look at the key advantages of Spring framework:

1. Solves Difficulties of Enterprise Application Development

There are many difficulties associated with development of complex applications. And, it is some of the features of Spring that are making life easy. Firstly, there is Inversion of Control (IOC), a salient feature of Spring framework where it creates an object in runtime and satisfies application dependencies by itself. Another is Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP)which is quite popular in the programming world.

In the Spring framework, it is used to develop an application in which the business logic is not connected to the system services. It provides declarative enterprise services such as declarative transaction management. Moreover, a developer can complement his use of OOP with AOP by implementing custom aspects. The Spring Core, Spring IoC and Spring AOP all help in integrating various integrants of business applications.

2.Easy Application Testing

In comparison to traditional Java EE applications, Spring is a lightweight framework which allows you to selectively use any of its module on the top of Spring Core. The Java EE applications used to be deployed to heavyweight application servers like Websphere while Spring can be deployed to a lightweight web container like Tomcat or Jetty.

These can be activated without using the application server or webserver. This Spring container can be used to develop and run test cases outside enterprise container making testing much easier. Then, with Spring, one can use POJO (Plain Old Java Object) classes which also free a developer from the need of importing a heavy enterprise container, thus making application testing an easy game.

3. Modularity

Though it has many amazing features, modularity is the main feature which makes Spring easy to use in the application development. Spring framework is a modular framework which comes with many modules such as Spring ORM, Spring MVC, Spring JDBC, Spring Transactions, etc. Each of these or more can be used as per application requirement. For example, Spring MVC Framework is a well-designed web MVC framework that is used for developing MVC based web applications.

4. Building Different Types of Applications

There is so much to do do with Spring. It handles the infrastructure as the underlying framework so that developers can completely focus on creating their application.It supports development of 2 tier to n tier architecture and distributed applications. Spring can be utilized for the development of various kind of applications like Web applications, applets, standalone java projects, standalone GUI applications, etc.

5. Easy Integration with Other Frameworks

Spring offers the freedom of choice when it comes to the architecture, technology, or methodology that is most relevant to a developer for his project. It provides its own web framework, the Spring MVC and also allows integration with a number of popular third-party web frameworks. With it, you can use ORM, Struts, Hibernate JSF, WebWork, and Tapestry and many other frameworks.

6. Transaction Management

Spring Transaction Management interface is extremely flexible. Spring framework provides this Transaction Management layer that can be used with or without J2EE(JEE) environment.

It can be configured to can scale down to a local transaction and scale up to global transactions by using JTA.

These were some of the main advantages of Spring. In case you are planning to enhance your learning with a Spring Framework tutorial, this is probably the right time. Enhance your development skills and use it to build a variety of applications.