Spring is one of the frameworks of the moment but is it really a great framework or something entirely different? Most of the frameworks that I know of are fairly targeted and form a particular function. All of the good ones that I know of have a particular place in life; a frame work for doing some thing. Spring does not. But there’s gold in that there code…

Probably the most disappointing thing about Spring is its documentation. The entry barrier for integrating Spring with the rest of your tool set is quite high by its limited documentation. Yes there is a great volume of the stuff, but it appears to be limited to those who are already in ‘the know’. In other words if you really want to get a handle on Spring from scratch you have two choices: either buy a book or surf the web and hope.

But this is because we’ve been mislead. Struts is a framework, Spring is not. So a conclusive introduction to Struts is easy to write and easy to understand because it frames an idea. However as Spring does not frame a central idea and so writing an introduction to Spring is almost a lost cause from a framework point of view.

Spring is an SDK. A jolly brilliant SDK. When you look at the Spring development kit you find that it will work with what you have, doesn’t force a great monster of a framework on you and it riddled with simply brilliant concepts and patterns. As you start to delve into it you realise that the guys who put it together have brought together a great collection of conceptual gems. If you keep watching the SDK grow you will see more and more of them being added to the SDK as components for use in groups or by themselves.

Underlying all of these gems is a strong theme of patterns and approaches to design that pervades all corners of the SDK making it feel and look like a slick whole. These concepts include such things as the pervasive use of IOC accross the board to the modular adoption of specific patterns like MVC, which IS a framework, that are included in such a way as to let the designer include or exclude them in accordance with usefulness. In most ‘frameworks’ that I’ve seen its either all features or a difficult configuration to remove unwanted bloat.

So is Spring a case against bloat ware? No. Bloat ware is a term given to things that produce copious quantities of bulk which could easily be replaced by more stream lined solutions. When you see a product that makes you think ’surely that could be done with less’ you’re probably looking at bloat ware. Spring is not there for that purpose. You see almost everything it does belongs to the school of computing that is termed ‘middle ware’. Middle ware is almost by definition bloat.

However tempting to label Spring as bloat ware it does perform two very critical tasks often overlooked by those bloat ware vigilantes out there; it makes your software manageable. Everything that Spring does could be pared back to make it faster more efficient etc but you could barely dent it at the cost of making your software less easy to design, implement, install and operate. Carefully add Spring to your project and you are adding real value in terms of future proofing your product and saving yourself a ton of grief.

So if this is a SDK how does it compare to other SDK’s? To answer this question you need to think about perspective. If you look at the JDK, the standard C/C++ libraries, X windows xt or even Microsoft’s extensive .Net SDK you will find products that are built bottom up. That is products that have been built from a wide array of small useful components into a general smorgasbord of fancy components and knick knacks. Spring is built the other way around, it has been built from concepts to components. So when you look at Spring you see a large number of cohesive modules rather than the gravel and rocks of most other SDK’s. Effectively Spring takes the concepts and makes them real relying on other foundational tool kits to get the simple things in life done. Top down.

So Spring is not a framework, it is not a way of protecting you from bloat ware, it is an implementation of concepts, patterns and design built on the basics for you to cherry pick as you please and improve your product and its operation. Its an SDK like so many others; hardly a reinvention of an old wheel, but a new sporty set of spokes to use in building your own.