From June's resume: Spring Framework is a popular framework in Java

Imagine that you have completed your JavaRush training and started looking for your first job. In job descriptions, you come across frameworks and tools that you haven’t tried. We're launching a series of articles to help you understand which Java tools are used in which projects, and at what stage in your developer's career you should learn them. In the first article we will talk about the most popular framework - Spring Framework.

Spring Framework: what is it?

Spring is a popular framework used by Java developers. If we use analogies, then the framework is essentially like a ready-made food kit for borscht. You can write a web application yourself without using a framework. Using the borscht example, it will look like this: go to the village and grow vegetables, collect and cook the borscht. Or you can simplify the process and buy a ready-made product set, that is, a framework. Code written using the framework is more efficient and easy to test. One of the main advantages of Spring is that it injects dependencies between objects that otherwise the developer would have to add manually. The developer only needs to describe the connections between objects - the framework will do the rest for you. This is a set of functionality that will definitely work.

How popular is Spring?

Spring is used everywhere Java is. The demand for this framework has been constantly growing since its creation in 2003. You can see the dynamics of popularity on the ItJobsWatch website - 3% of all developer vacancies in the UK are in Spring. The average salary is about 60 thousand pounds sterling per year. In the job market of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, Spring is also one of the leading frameworks. According to a study on the Stack Overflow resource , 16.2% of developers in all languages ​​choose the Spring Framework - it is in 6th place in popularity among all web frameworks. Of course, if we talk exclusively about Java developers, then all 95%.

What projects will it be needed for?

Almost everything where Java is used. Let's list the main ones:

• Web applications;
• Applications that use databases;
• Cloud services;
• Android applications.

Spring consists of individual components that allow you to work with the above projects and many others. For example, Spring Web (creating web applications), Spring Security (to secure the application, set up authorization and authentication), Spring Boot (simplifies the configuration of applications on Spring).

When and how to teach?

Junior must know the Spring Framework. You can start it when a beginner has learned Core Java, the Git version control system, understood the basics of working with the network, and learned how to create simple servlets . The training may take about one to two months. It may take a month to write your first simple project. To thoroughly study the framework, it will take much more time, since it is constantly evolving. Here are some opinions of the developers: “Almost all the examples that you will find for Spring work on servlets. Start learning with servlets. There’s no need to go too deep, just understand the technology itself - what it is and how it works. My advice is to take a ready-made project, perhaps an educational one. And try to change existing processes rather than write “from scratch.” Why is this so: in a real project you can see what is used always and constantly (that is, you need to learn), and what is secondary trash (you don’t need to learn, you need to keep the documentation at hand),” says developer Alexey. “It only makes sense to talk about learning the Spring framework if you are already familiar with Java, databases, some object-oriented programming techniques, web technologies, and other basic software development skills. The Spring framework does not exist in a vacuum and is useless on its own,” says Ivan Mushketik.