What is Spring

What is Spring.?

Hello Friends,

Nice to see you again.

In Previous Sessions  we have seen Spring Setup in Eclipse IDE..

Now this is the basic core explanation of Spring Framework of JAVA.

So be ready to learn this simple exmaple of Spring Framework..

What is Spring..?

         By definition the Spring Framework is “An open-source layered Java/J2EE application framework having a light-weight container implementing Inversion-of-Control and Aspect Oriented Programming.” 

              

              The key points here are “layered application framework” and “Inversion of Control and Aspect Oriented Programming.” 

These key points can be divided into two broad categories:

1) Patterns

2) Components of the Framework

              The former refers to the design patterns supported by Spring Framework 

              And the latter refers to the components that build up the Framework. 

Spring has two patterns at its core. They are:

1) Inversion-of-Control

2) Aspect Oriented Programming

              The former is also called IoC and 

              The latter is known as AOP. Here are the details.

Inversion-of-Control : 

               It is called IoC for short. IoC “is a concept, and an associated set of programming techniques, in which the control flow is inverted compared to the traditional interaction model expressed in imperative style by a series of procedure calls.” 

              In other words, the framework calls the procedures created by the programmer, rather than programmer calling the procedures or methods of the framework. IoC is also known as the “Hollywood Principle.” The Hollywood Principle says “Don’t call me, I will call you.”

              IoC is used to ‘inject’ dependencies at runtime. When one uses this pattern, the dependencies of a particular object are not satisfied at compile time. Instead, the framework provides the required dependencies to the object at runtime. Thus, this pattern releases the programmer from the chore of providing all the dependencies at compile time.

Aspect Oriented Programming: 

              AOP for short, is by definition “An approach to programming that attempts the separation of concerns, specifically cross-cutting concerns, as an advance in modularization.”

              Here, the key point is separation of concerns. Concern is another term for a module of an application, where module refers to a functionality of the application.

              Separation of concerns means that the applications are divided into modules that do not overlap in terms of functionality. However, some functionalities or modules/concerns always overlap other modules/concerns. Logging is an example of such a concern. 

              AOP provides techniques to encapsulate cross cutting or overlapping concerns. In other words, by using AOP a developer can encapsulate cross cutting concerns.

              Spring provides both IoC as well as AOP. They are built into the core of the Spring Framework. The next aspect of the Spring Framework worth noting is its support for layered architecture. It provides this support through its various components. Some of them are:

MVC Component

IOC container

DAO support

These three cater to the Presentation, Business, and Persistence layers. Here is a brief overview:

MVC Component: 
              The flexibility of the Spring Framework is that one can use any MVC framework with it. However, it also provides its own framework, called Spring MVC.  Spring MVC implements MVC-Model 2 for JSP. It does this by providing controller Servlet and JSP taglib for you to view.

IoC Container: 
              The business logic layer can be developed without coupling it with any other layers by using IoC provided by the Spring Framework. The IoC container is the core component of the framework. IoC lets the developer implement the business logic as Plain Old Java Objects (POJO) and wire them up so that they can be injected or called at runtime. This approach lets you avoid specifying the business objects as dependencies at compile time.

DAO Support: 
               Any of the technologies, including JDBC, Hibernate, and iBatis, can be used with the Spring Framework to access persisted data. The Spring Framework provides this functionality through its DAO support component. A developer can plug in almost any of the persistence framework by using the DAO component.

That completes the bird’s eye view of the Spring Framework. Next, let us have a look at the steps involved in using the Spring Framework, specifically the IoC capability of the Spring Framework.

check here for Detailed Overview Of Spring:
http://www.opensourcelive.com/Denver/springbasics.pdf

So I hope this explanation is helpful in understanding the Spring Framework in JAVA.

Feel free to ask me if you have any dought regarding this.

You can also give me suggessions to improve this tutorial.

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Thank you.

Nirav Raval