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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-15T13:51:12+00:00

I am just starting to learn about spring and was looking at the difference

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I am just starting to learn about spring and was looking at the difference between Spring 3.0 and Spring 2.5.

Initially i was following this tutorial http://static.springsource.org/docs/Spring-MVC-step-by-step/index.html which is a step by step guide to developing a Spring MVC application. It is based on Spring 2.5 and i notice there are quite a few differences with Spring 3.0. I tried to find the equivalent tutorial that is based on 3.0 but couldnt find it.

The difference i notice with 3.0 is that there is a lot of use of annotations and a lot of things is done for you in the background. I am sure this is a good thing but i am wondering for the purpose of learning the framework should i continue with 2.5 so that i can understand what goes on behind the scenes before i use spring 3.0?

Please also if you can recommend a spring book that is suitable for a beginner i would appreciate it.

Thanks

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    … should i continue with 2.5 so that i can understand what goes on behind the scenes before i use spring 3.0?

    That’s really up to you to decide, but if you are going down the Spring 3.x annotation-based route, it is not clear that you >>need<< to understand what is happening behind the scenes. Especially for run-of-the-mill applications.

    I was not aware of the purchase of Spring by VMware. Do you think this might affect the open source aspect of Spring in that it might not be open source anymore?

    First, the SpringFramework guys are thoroughly committed to open source (from what I can see). So a change would probably entail lots of developers leaving.

    Second, most of the people who use Spring do so because it is open source, so a change would risk a major migration of (paying) customers away.

    Third, turning Spring into a closed source product would be a politically awful move for VMware, and would likely have fallout for other VMware product lines.

    Finally, and most importantly for people committed to using Spring: there is no way that the VMware could legally “undo” the open sourcing of current Spring releases. The best they could do would be say that Spring 4.0 etc was closed source. Anyone who wanted to would be free to continue distributing and using SpringFramework 1.0.x, 2.0.x, 2.5.x, 3.0.x and all associated open sourced technologies. And anyone would be free to create a “fork” of any of them to continue Spring open source development. The only possible issue would be the use of trademarks, and that is easily worked around.

    Add that all up, and (IMO) there is nothing to worry about.

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