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I‘m seasoned dev with 20 years of Java programming experience, I see no problems using Spring and I don’t see why anyone with similar experience would have any.

I‘m seasoned dev with 20 years of Java programming experience, I see no problems using Spring and I don’t see why anyone with similar experience would have any. It’s sometimes not obvious, how some things work, but it’s open source and the code is quite good to analyze, extend or replace.

jimbokun 8y ago
"the code is quite good to analyze, extend or replace" But how do you even know what code to read when so much of the program's logic is in annotations and other kinds of action at a distance?
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  Exactly. For example, if you're (still) using Spring MVC, what gets called in your backend on a given action attribute in your JSP or Thymeleaf or whatever template, is expressed through your method signature and lots of annotations where the order of arguments matter eg. some magic attributes must come right after others. All you see in your debugger, though, is that your request hangs in some nested and chained handler and reflection monstrosity driven by annotations and who knows what. Took multiple developers a day or two to figure out, each on their own. It's not that Spring is badly coded or something, I just don't need these surprises and the magical thinking surrounding newbie Spring Boot projects.
  - ivan_gammel 8y ago
    Newbie can write bad code on any platform, but it‘s a short period of life of software developer - the problem of beginners is solved not by the tools they use, but through a reasonable composition of the team with sufficient number of experienced developers who can define the architecture and best practices.
    - jimbokun 8y ago
      From what I can tell, the "bad" Spring code is the code following the recommended Best Practices, at least according to the tutorials that pop up in Google search results.
      - ivan_gammel 8y ago
        There’s one “must read” tutorial - documentation on official Spring website. There’s also github account with lots of examples. It’s better to ignore the trash that comes from search results, because either it’s trivial or obsolete.
  - ptx 8y ago
    Another related surprising thing (as I'm currently learning Spring/Hibernate/etc.) is what happens when the Hibernate Validator library is missing at runtime: Nothing. All the carefully crafted validation annotations just don't do anything, no validation is performed, and there is no indication whatsoever of this.
    - ivan_gammel 8y ago
      It’s not a problem with annotations or Spring - could happen e.g. with SPI and anything that’s discovered in runtime. It’s about how you build your project and configure dependencies (separation of API and implementation in different JARs is typical for Java and implies certain way of thought about build and deployment).
- ivan_gammel 8y ago
  The source code of Spring itself. I know Spring internals - there’s no dark magic there and reference guide describes it well. DI is straightforward, MVC - not perfect, but generally easy, Security - well, it has design problems, but they are not related to annotations.
  - jimbokun 8y ago
    "but they are not related to annotations" I had a problem with security that I could only solve by adding an "Order" annotation to my class. Reading the code and stepping through it in the debugger did me absolutely no good.
    - ivan_gammel 8y ago
      So, annotation was a solution to a problem (how to define a sequence in which configuration is applied), not a cause, right?

jimbokun 8y ago

"the code is quite good to analyze, extend or replace" But how do you even know what code to read when so much of the program's logic is in annotations and other kinds of action at a distance?

tannhaeuser 8y ago
Exactly. For example, if you're (still) using Spring MVC, what gets called in your backend on a given action attribute in your JSP or Thymeleaf or whatever template, is expressed through your method signature and lots of annotations where the order of arguments matter eg. some magic attributes must come right after others. All you see in your debugger, though, is that your request hangs in some nested and chained handler and reflection monstrosity driven by annotations and who knows what. Took multiple developers a day or two to figure out, each on their own. It's not that Spring is badly coded or something, I just don't need these surprises and the magical thinking surrounding newbie Spring Boot projects.
- ivan_gammel 8y ago
  Newbie can write bad code on any platform, but it‘s a short period of life of software developer - the problem of beginners is solved not by the tools they use, but through a reasonable composition of the team with sufficient number of experienced developers who can define the architecture and best practices.
  - jimbokun 8y ago
    From what I can tell, the "bad" Spring code is the code following the recommended Best Practices, at least according to the tutorials that pop up in Google search results.
    - ivan_gammel 8y ago
      There’s one “must read” tutorial - documentation on official Spring website. There’s also github account with lots of examples. It’s better to ignore the trash that comes from search results, because either it’s trivial or obsolete.
- ptx 8y ago
  Another related surprising thing (as I'm currently learning Spring/Hibernate/etc.) is what happens when the Hibernate Validator library is missing at runtime: Nothing. All the carefully crafted validation annotations just don't do anything, no validation is performed, and there is no indication whatsoever of this.
  - ivan_gammel 8y ago
    It’s not a problem with annotations or Spring - could happen e.g. with SPI and anything that’s discovered in runtime. It’s about how you build your project and configure dependencies (separation of API and implementation in different JARs is typical for Java and implies certain way of thought about build and deployment).
ivan_gammel 8y ago
The source code of Spring itself. I know Spring internals - there’s no dark magic there and reference guide describes it well. DI is straightforward, MVC - not perfect, but generally easy, Security - well, it has design problems, but they are not related to annotations.
- jimbokun 8y ago
  "but they are not related to annotations" I had a problem with security that I could only solve by adding an "Order" annotation to my class. Reading the code and stepping through it in the debugger did me absolutely no good.
  - ivan_gammel 8y ago
    So, annotation was a solution to a problem (how to define a sequence in which configuration is applied), not a cause, right?