Since development first began on Spring in 2003, there's been a constant buzz about it in Java development publications and corporate IT departments. The reason is clear: Spring is a lightweight Java framework in a world of complex heavyweight architectures that take forever to implement. Spring is like a breath of fresh air to overworked developers. In Spring, you can make an object secure, remote, or transactional, with a couple of lines of configuration instead of embedded code. The resulting application is simple and clean. In Spring, you can work less and go home early, because you can strip away a whole lot of the redundant code that you tend to see in most J2EE applications. You won't be nearly as burdened with meaningless detail. In Spring, you can change your mind without the consequences bleeding through your entire application. You'll adapt much more quickly than you ever could before. Spring: A Developer's Notebook offers a quick dive into the new Spring framework, designed to let you get hands-on as quickly as you like. If you don't want to bother with a lot of theory, this book is definitely for you. You'll work through one example after another. Along the way, you'll discover the energy and promise of the Spring framework. This practical guide features ten code-intensive labs that'll rapidly get you up to speed. You'll learn how to do the following, and more:

• install the Spring Framework

• set up the development environment

• use Spring with other open source Java tools such as Tomcat, Struts, and Hibernate

• master AOP and transactions

• utilize ORM solutions

As with all titles in the Developer's Notebook series, this no-nonsense book skips all the boring prose and cuts right to the chase. It's an approach that forces you to get your hands dirty by working through one instructional example after another-examples that speak to you instead of at you.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 16 Ratings

Safai Tech Books Online has the original printing - 2006-02-03
Reviewer Rating:
After reading these reviews I wasn't going to buy a hard copy of this book not knowing which version I would get. Since I have access to Safari Text Books Online, I thought that this is where it would be easiest for O'Reilly to incorporate the fixes. Sadly, no. You have to click between the page you're on and the errata page (which, if printed, would take 8 pages) to manually incorporate the fixes.

Absolutely dreadful - 2006-03-22
Reviewer Rating:
(Yes, I have the updated version.)

This book was a complete waste of money. I was left feeling strongly that the authors understand neither Spring itself nor the "heavyweight" technologies which they compare it against; many of the statements made about EJB or Struts are simply false.

The book does an exceptionally poor job of explaining how the Spring framework should be used. The examples are not at all clear, and the text often appears to be meaningless. I find it hard to believe this book was reviewed at all.

Do NOT buy this book - 2007-01-16
Reviewer Rating:
I read 14 pages and more than half of codes have errors or typos.
I doubt if author understand th contents. He keeps in describing the feeling about programming. he does not explain about what it means, or how it works. Do not buy this book, it is waste of your money and time.

This book is an excellent start to Spring - don't listen to the others! - 2008-02-28
Reviewer Rating:
I got the first edition of this book in late 2006, and spent 2 days working through it, while at the same time building up a test Spring application.

Anyone here who says they can't get the code running or even compiling is showing their general incompetence as a developer, as opposed to the quality of the book.

From start to finish, I did not have an issue with getting the examples working - and this was all done without an internet connection. The so called litany of errors is all a load of hot air.

If you are the sort of developer who likes to copy and paste code and *pretend* that you know a topic, then you should not get this book OR any of the other books in this series.

On the other hand, if you are a competent developer who has used open source Java projects before, then you will not have a problem. That is, if you can think for yourself there will not be a problem.

The book is excellent for covering all the topics you need to know to get up and running with Spring - annotations, transactions, ORM ibatis/Hibernate mappings, mail, Spring MVC and a great description of exactly what Inversion of Control/Dependency Injection actually is. Two thumbs up!

bit of information - 2009-07-24
Reviewer Rating:
The authors are trying to provide some hands-on notes and codes to introduce Spring framework in a template format. The intention is good, the size of the book is good (not like many other books on Spring which are over 500 pages), but the 'glue' to make all disparate information together is missing. Essentially, all these bits of information become separated islands. Even for the basic element, details are not provided for readers to get a clear picture. I understand that authors may want to keep the size of the book small, but it really needs to be detailed enough (but not more than enough)to be any useful for readers.
One other question is what kayaking and biking have anything to do with Spring? Maybe it is metaphor that I could not figure out. One of the authors keeps saying his experience of kayaking and biking, it is annoying.
On the positive side, the book does not do any harmful things to Spring, though it does very little helpful things either.
The book is probably deprecated with new Spring release. So if you really want to keep pace with Spring, look elsewhere.

Browse Similar Topics

Top Level Categories:
Internet/Online
Programming

Sub-Categories:
Internet/Online > Java
Programming > Java