What Is Spring?

Perhaps one the hardest parts of actually explaining Spring as a technology is classifying exactly what it is. Typically, Spring is described as a lightweight framework for building Java applications, but that statement brings up two interesting points. First, you can use Spring to build any application in Java (e.g., stand-alone, Web, JEE applications, etc.), unlike many other frameworks such as Apache Struts, which is limited to web applications. Second, the lightweight part of the description doesn’t really refer to the number of classes or the size of the distribution, but rather, it defines the principle of the Spring philosophy as a whole—that is, minimal impact. Spring is lightweight in the sense that you have to make few, if any, c....