Mark Fisher's presentation provided an excellent introduction to Spring for beginners and also covered many of the newer advanced features for existing users. Mark explained the basic rationale behind Spring and demonstrated how easy it was to use. Unlike Enterprise Java Beans, Spring doesn't require a container but it can be used in an EJB application. As a result, Spring can be invoked from a main method. Mark covered the new annotation features as well as AspectJ support. Since Java SIG meetings usually run over, the meeting was split in half with an advanced discussion following the raffle. The advanced discussion delved into support for webservices, RMI, deployment issues etc. This portion of the meeting was driven by attendee questions.

Slides
Code Samples

Abstract

The Spring Framework enables developers to focus on business logic rather than application "plumbing". Its lightweight container configures and assembles an application's components so that developers do not need to implement and maintain custom factories, service locators, and the like. Spring decouples the infrastructure  from the application code thereby providing deployment flexibility  and testability. Spring can add enterprise services non-invasively by  means of declarative configuration. In this presentation, Mark will  demonstrate how to leverage the Spring container and the Spring APIs  to simplify code, increase productivity, and improve the overall  quality of applications.

Presenter

Mark has provided consulting and training services for clients across numerous industries throughout North America including several fortune 500 companies. He has presented sessions on Messaging, ESBs, and Portlets at "No Fluff, Just Stuff" symposiums, the SpringOne conference, and The Spring Experience, and he speaks at user groups around the United States.

Raffles