Spring is the season that is known for fresh leaves, new flowers, and joy which makes our minds more creative. Do you know there is a bonus for us? We have another Spring as well. Our very own Spring framework! It is an open-source application framework that is used for building Java applications and projects.
There are many reasons for which Spring is one of the best choices for developing our project as it is open-source, stable, and many more. It is one of the most trusted frameworks for building projects or developing enterprise applications when working with the Java tech stack and projects written in Java are more secure and robust.
We’ll discuss 10 reasons to use the Spring Framework in the projects in this article. Let’s get into our Spring framework season where code will be our flowers and easy to be used feature of Spring, our joy!
1. Easy, Simple, and Lightweight
Let’s admit that we look for easier things first! Spring is easy to learn and implement which is composed of modules where we can write spring applications normally with interfaces and abstract classes just like java applications. Spring helps in coupling and wiring the components which make working with Spring easier and simpler as we can focus more on our application rather than its implementation. It is lightweight as we can inject dependencies as per our need without having to include each of them thus saving the project from unnecessary memory utilization.
2. Builds Secure Web Applications
From buying a lock to renting a house, we often look into if they can provide security or not or are secure or not. Why not look for security when building an application? Spring provides security if Spring Security is on the classpath and we can customize the security settings further for basic authentication and prevent vulnerabilities in our project.
3. MVC Pattern
MVC is a pattern and methodology in software design that stands for Model View Controller which helps in separating implementation and business logic so that developers can focus on their code for better performance of the application. In simple words, the view is where requests are received first which are taken by the controller to the corresponding model for results which are then taken to view to show at the front side of the application. This systematic receiving and resolving of requests make MVC-based frameworks a good deal to work with. Spring supports the MVC pattern for developing projects which promotes separation of concerns, and loose coupling which is one of the key features of potential software.
4. Easy Communication with Databases
Databases are an important part of an application as without smooth and easy communication with the database, our application can become plain. Spring ensures easy and effective communication with databases as it has DAO (Data Access Object) functionality which is meant to read and write data to a database. With the support of DAO in Spring, data access related technologies such as Hibernate, JDBC, and JPA make it easier to communicate with databases. For example, Hibernate with Spring makes it easier to perform CRUD operations by eliminating the lines of code and using just simple functions to create, read, update or delete data from the database.
5. Modular Design
One of the striking features of Spring is its modularity. It is not a whole big framework containing everything as a tightly coupled package but is a framework having different JAR files which can be used independently of each other. It is divided into components such as core container, data access/integration, web, and test which work together but independently. Implementation can also be divided in Spring according to the MVC pattern where the view interacts with the user and is responsible for receiving requests and sending responses to the user, the controller working to provide the requests to the correct method and model working with databases and data-related operations.
6. Can be Integrated with Other Frameworks
Having a good network of people is considered one of the key points of success in today’s world. Our spring is successful as it has a good network and can be used with other frameworks such as Struts, and Hibernate. This makes it more in demand as one can ease out CRUD operations for databases when Hibernate is integrated with Spring.
7. Dependency Injection
Dependency is neither good for human beings nor the classes in projects. Dependency Injection helps in decreasing coupling and dependency between classes in Spring projects so that the program becomes maintainable and reusable. Modules of one project can be used effectively in another project like a login page, and registration page which not only saves them time but also promotes code reusability which is one of the important aspects of software development.
8. Follows Aspect-Oriented Programming
Aspect-Oriented Programming allows us to think differently about the structure of the program by enabling the modularization of concerns. It helps in breaking down the logic into parts known as concerns and the concerns help in dividing the business logic of an application and in increasing the modularity. Compared to OOP, AOP has no comparison as AOP emerged out of the OOP paradigm. Just like class is the key to the modularity of OOP, aspect is the key to the modularity of AOP.
9. Testing becomes easy
No matter whether we like it or not, tests are part of our life, be it in school or college. To assess applications, testing is done to know if they are working as per expectations and documentation or not. The feature of dependency injection makes frameworks more testable and this is one of the reasons that Spring is good for testing purposes. Loose coupling also helps in unit testing as this way classes can be tested independently without having to depend on one another. It is not good to test complex projects in one go hence, Spring plays as a good option to develop projects as it is easy to test their functionality.
10. Handle external resources easily
Spring handles not only internal resources but also external resources efficiently such as property files, image files, and XML files. Resource and ResourceLoader are the interfaces present in Spring to handle external resources.
These are some of the reasons for using the Spring framework in the project. Not only for projects, but Spring also is in demand for enterprise-level applications as well as Java is robust and is itself a worthy candidate as a language to be used for development. Java, when taken into the Spring framework, makes developing complex applications easier. Spring supports Spring Security which makes this framework more valuable as it provides great support for security and authenticity as we are fully aware of the importance of security and maintenance of data in the data-driven world!