Spring Framework is the most trusted and widely used application development framework in Enterprise Java. Originally introduced as a simple and lightweight alternative for the complex J2EE, Spring has now grown to become a truly modern application development platform. Spring and its subprojects provide an excellent foundation for end-to-end application development, with features beyond even those provided by the latest Java EE, such as mobile development, social networking, and big data, besides traditional Java web, server-side, or even standalone applications. After more than a decade since its inception, Spring continues to inspire technologies and technologists across the globe.

Although Spring simplifies Java development drastically, software developers and architects are still required to gain a thorough understanding of its core concepts and features in order to deduce the best use of the Spring family. The simplicity Spring offers to otherwise complex Java development is the result of smart abstractions that it provides in the form of excellent APIs and modules. Spring components relieve the developer of all the technical complexity and heavy lifting of common technical and infrastructure plumbing tasks. As the official Spring documentation says, Spring provides comprehensive infrastructure support so that you can focus on your application.

This book is an attempt to make your Spring learning even easier and a more enjoyable experience.

This chapter gives you a solid foundation of the core Spring Framework, guiding you through its core concepts, components, and modules accompanied by relevant sample code snippets that illustrate the best and most practical usage of each feature in order to solve your everyday programming problems.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics: