The Spring jPetStore

J2EE's infamous Pet Store application is known everywhere is a great bad example. While it shows great design, it is a horribly performing application. The recent versions of Spring include their own implementation of the pet store. This example illustrates how to develop an enterprise application using Spring and is a great resource to reference whenever a portion of the framework is unclear.

What Spring is Not

Spring is not a drop-in replacement for EJBs. While you can certainly do just about everything in Spring that can be accomplished with EJBs, it is not a simple switch from existing EJB design. There are many fundamental differences with Spring and it will take a concentrated effort by your team to make the transition.

Approaching Spring and expecting it to be almost like EJBs is a sure way to frustration with the Framework. It is designed for multi-tier enterprise Java development and can handle most if not all of the challenges that an enterprise application is faced with. But it comes at the problem in a much more elegant manner. Many of the complexities and frustrations that are normally associated with EJB development simply do not exist in a Spring application. Probably the most difficult aspect of learning Spring is getting comfortable with its approach to enterprise development.

Is Spring the right choice for your next multi-tier development project? As always that questions is difficult to answer. If your team is already well versed in J2EE development then the answer is probably no. Spring is quite different and it would probably take your team a great deal of effort to make the switch.

But if your team is relatively new to J2EE development or uncomfortable with all of the requirements that the EJB specs impose, then it is probably worth taking a look at. It certainly offers another choice and in a lot of situations it can be a viable solution to your enterprise Java development needs.