A (re)introduction to Spring MVC

In recent releases, Spring has introduced many new features, especially with regard to annotation-driven configuration. The number of annotations available in Spring has doubled and no area of Spring development has benefited from annotation-driven development more than Spring's own MVC framework. At the same time, Spring MVC has evolved to have first-class support for building RESTful web applications.

From the very beginning, Spring has included Spring MVC, a web framework built around the Spring Framework. Originally based on a rich hierarchy of controller classes, Spring MVC served developers well, but began to look a little long in the tooth compared to other web frameworks.

With the release of Spring 2.5 and continuing into Spring 3.0, Spring has embraced annotation-based development. The number of annotations provided by Spring have more than doubled from what was available in Spring 2.0. Many of these new annotations are directly aimed at simplifying web development with Spring MVC, eliminating the cumbersome hierarchical programming model.

In addition Spring 3.0 offers first-class support for REST in its Spring MVC framework. For the first time, developing RESTful web applications in Spring MVC is a natural option and is as simple as developing applications that do not employ the REST model.

In this session, we'll explore the new annotations useful for configuring Spring MVC and see how to build Spring web applications with minimal XML and without extending any Spring-specific classes. We'll also get a taste of how to take advantage of Spring's support for REST, both server side and client side.

About Craig Walls

Craig Walls is a Principal Engineer, Java Champion, Alexa Champion, and the author of Spring AI in Action, Spring in Action, and Build Talking Apps. He's a zealous promoter of the Spring Framework, speaking frequently at local user groups and conferences and writing about Spring. When he's not slinging code, Craig is planning his next trip to Disney World or Disneyland and spending as much time as he can with his wife, two daughters, 1 bird and 2 dogs.

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