i don't know JSF very well, and i have a friend who is using only JSF
and he asked me a very open question, why do you use spring not jsf ?
and because of there are a lot of things about spring in my mind
i wasn't able to give some straight answers
so what are the advantages of spring over JSF ?
Spring and JSF are quite a different frameworks.
JSF is more of a web application framework and you can still use spring with JSF to manage the relationship and creations of the objects.
Spring is more of an entire j2ee application framework/plaform.
Spring MVC and web flow will help you to design web applications similar to JSF.
But spring with its IOC concept also brings a lot of other modules such as dependency injection, aop, DAO, ORM, integration, batch and social tools and much more.
You can also check the JSF-Spring combination - http://www.springsource.org/node/422
JSF is presentation layer, Spring business layer (roughly said), they can be used together and do not compete.
As said before, JSF is a request-driven, MVC web-framework, built around a light-weight IoC container and is designed to simplify and standardize the way UI-layer of a web-application is built.
Spring, on the other hand, is less concerned with UI-layer but its precise definition is hard to formulate. It can be said that the primary function of SF is to tie together different layers of a web application in a standardized way, at the same time abstracting away the implementation details of a particular web technology from the developer. As one of the consequences, the developer is freed from implementing "plumbing" and instead gets working module interconnections which are tested, implemented and used relatively easily. This should provide a boost to productivity and shortens development cycle.
This abstraction can be viewed through various Spring modules - Spring is heavily modularized, so you choose which components of the framework will you be using. Though it features a MVC framework (SpringMVC is mostly written as a reaction to the Jakarta Struts, whom the Spring developers deemed poorly written), Spring lacks a dedicated presentation module so you're free to use most of existing UI technologies (e.g. JSF, GWT-oids, etc.) - once you properly configure them in Spring.
In another words, the "scopes" of JSF and Spring are quite different (though not totally disjunct).
Related
So I'm about to learn Spring MVC. But what I don't understand is why should I use Spring MVC if I can implement the MVC pattern using a single servlet conroller and JSPs? What advantages does Spring MVC provide over simple java MVC pattern?
Actually yes, you can do it. Question is if you should do it. Spring MVC gives you better organization of your code.
Pure MVC Frameworks like Spring MVC are obsolete today. When combined with templating engines like Thymeleaf, it lacks functionality and developers usually reinvent JSF. For single-page apps based on some popular JS frameworks that need REST backend, JAX-RS is way cleaner and better than Spring MVC REST.
So no, today you don't need Spring MVC and can stick with pure Java EE. For simple, toy-like applications where servlets are enough, you don't really need it but it may be better to use it. For anything serious, MVC is outdated and Spring has nothing to offer.
Edit 2017: Spring offers JAX-RS integration. However, it has several pitfalls, for example Spring won't automatically register classes annotated with #Path for you. Details can be found in Dzone Article
The best way to realize that it's better to play with these technologies for yourself, if you want to try spring MVC I recommend you start with spring boot because you can create projects with more agility without configuring xml files
Spring Boot
Some Features
Create stand-alone Spring applications
Embed Tomcat, Jetty or Undertow directly (no need to deploy WAR files)
Provide opinionated 'starter' POMs to simplify your Maven configuration
Automatically configure Spring whenever possible
Provide production-ready features such as metrics, health checks and
externalized configuration
Absolutely no code generation and no requirement for XML configuration
One of the ideas applied in Spring (not invented by Spring) is
Do not reinvent a wheel.
Having a single controller is not a good idea I'd say - breaking separation of concerns principle.
You can learn more about MVC from Spring documentation.
I know this is not a programmatic questions.
I am a n00b to this area coming from Java EE background and could not find the difference between the two online (may be I am not a good surfer)
Could someone please share the info?
Spring is a framework alternative to Java EE with three parts:
Dependency injection
Aspect oriented programming.
Libraries for web MVC, persistence, messaging, etc.
Spring MVC is for web MVC. It's one of the many libraries built into Spring. You can use other alternatives (e.g. Struts, SEAM, etc.) if you wish and still use Spring.
spring is enterprise framework designed to solve all your problems for enterprise applications. At present they call it as Spring IO, which can be found at spring.io website.
However, Spring MVC is a framework part of the whole stack available to solve the enterprise solutions. This is framework for writing web applications.
I am new to Spring. Just having basic understanding of it.
I am curious to know, can we use Spring MVC Framework and other components of Spring framework (like AOP) together?
Thanks!
Briefly yes.
quote
Spring could potentially be a one-stop shop for all your enterprise applications, however, Spring is modular, allowing you to pick and choose which modules are applicable to you, without having to bring in the rest. You can read details about modules available in Spring Framework.Here
Why are people using Spring DI vs. JSR330 DI? I see many projects still going forward at a huge speed with spring DI oblivious to the JSR330 specification. Many don't even know it exists. Was it not marketed enough and spring was?
I do see posts of Guice vs. spring, but the real argument should be JSR330 vs. spring since spring does not implement the spec yet(and hopefully one day it will). Any ideas on why such a large portion of the community seems oblivious to JSR330 and not evolving to it?
NOTE: I should make a correction here. Spring 3.0 does implement JSR330 and even has a way to override the default bindings much like guice except you have to supply an xml file instead of a Module file written in java.
I would say it is because Spring is so much more than just a simple DI container. Many teams use Spring for these other various reasons:
Transaction Management
Security
MVC
Aspects
Data Access
Batch processes
Webflow
Web Services
Many others...
They have their hands in so many things that it just makes it easy mix and match Spring technologies to do general enterprise development.
Spring 3.X supports JSR-330 out fo the box - http://blog.credera.com/topic/technology-solutions/java/springone-2gx-2011-summary/
It means that you can use the spring annotations or the JSR-330 ones.
I'm an individual programmer, developer and I see a huge demand for the frameworks: Spring, Spring MVC, webflow, and Hibernate. Popular today: Spring MVC, webflow, GWT.
I've been going through the tutorials, and the technology looks awesome !
What I would like to know, is.. It's used in corporate sites, why not for smaller sites. How can I apply these frameworks in building websites ?
I can't imaging doing any kind of serious website building without a modern CMS or Portal framework (whether in Java/php-opensource), And yes, MVC gives you the validation and authentication hooks to be used.
All the demo's on Spring, cover some elementary, contrived example.
If I learn these technologies (and I'm well on my way), how do I put them into practice, and in what context (no pun intented) do I use them ?
I don't want to rebuild a CMS system, but I'd like to employ these frameworks effectively.
You should have a look at Magnolia/Blossom.
Magnolia is a Java (JCR) based Repository, and Blossom some kind of Spring integration.
I used it in one of my project, it worked. (Not all Spring 3.0 Features worked - for example I was not able to map two or more urls to one controller), but it worked) And I was not able to find any other mature Spring based CMS.
At least I belive the power of Spring MVC is more in web based applications than in simple web sites.