Imagine that you have completed your CodeGym training and are looking for your first job. In job descriptions, you come across frameworks and tools that you have not gone through. We are starting a series of articles to help you understand which Java tools are used in which projects, and at what stage in a developer's career they should be taught. In the first article, let's talk about the most popular framework - the Spring Framework.
Spring Framework: what is it?
Spring is a popular framework used by Java developers. If we use analogies, then the framework, in fact, is like a ready-made food set for borscht. You can write a web application yourself without using a framework. On the example of borscht, it will look like this: go to the village and grow vegetables, collect and cook 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 performant and easier to test. One of the main advantages of Spring is that it injects dependencies between objects that, without it, a 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 inception 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 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 PLs 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 you need?
Almost all where Java is used. We list the main ones:
Web applications;
Applications that use databases;
cloud services;
Android apps.
Spring consists of separate components, which allow you to work with the above projects and many others. For example, Spring Web (creating web applications), Spring Security (to secure the application, configure authorization and authentication), Spring Boot (simplifies the configuration of applications on the spring).
When and how to teach?
Junior must know the base of the Spring Framework. You can start it when a beginner has learned Core Java, the Git version control system, figured out the basics of networking, and learned how to create simple servlets . The training may take about one to two months. It may take a month to write the first simple project. It will take much more time to thoroughly learn the framework, as it is constantly evolving.Here are some developers' opinions: “Almost all examples that you will find for Spring work on servlets. Start learning with servlets. You don’t need to go deep, just understand the technology itself – what it is and how it works. My advice is to take a ready-made project, possibly a training one. And try to change existing processes than to write from scratch. Why is this so: on a real project, you can see what is always and constantly used (that is, you need to learn), and what is secondary trash (you don’t need to learn, you need to keep documentation at hand),” saysAlex developer. “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.
One of the main advantages of Spring is that it injects dependencies between objects that, without it, a 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.
According to a study on the Stack Overflow resource , 16.2% of developers in all PLs 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%.
Here are some developers' opinions: “Almost all examples that you will find for Spring work on servlets. Start learning with servlets. You don’t need to go deep, just understand the technology itself – what it is and how it works. My advice is to take a ready-made project, possibly a training one. And try to change existing processes than to write from scratch. Why is this so: on a real project, you can see what is always and constantly used (that is, you need to learn), and what is secondary trash (you don’t need to learn, you need to keep documentation at hand),” saysAlex developer. “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.
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