Professional Java Development with the Spring Framework

If you are developing with Spring Framework you should buy this book and keep it handy by your desk, as it is a deep complement for the reference manual. This is an excellent book by Rod Johnson and some people at the core team who developed Spring, the excellent tool set for Java distributed applications. Even I have been developing many different sorts of programs and with a wide set of tools and languages for over 30 years, every time I reread any paragraph of this book, I learn a bit more. If you want to learn what Spring is or if you are considering using it, then you should probably first read "Spring in Action" by Craig Walls and Ryan Breidenbach (Manning ed.) which as a recipies book helps introduce Spring concepts by example, or read "Pro Spring" by Rob Harrop and Jan Machacek (Apress ed.) which goes a bit slower with concepts and examples.

If you want to get going with Spring as I did you can just download and start coding, read a simpler book or, like me, get stuck in to the mother load - this book. It has even managed convinced me that there are some good, ahem, aspects to AOP. The only thing that I find dismal about Java / web programming, even with Spring, is that the UI is still the biggest pain of all to develop. This space just has too many technologies and there is a huge amount of churn. Since the book Spring has started to become integrated with AJAX which makes the whole mix even more complex. Keeps us consultants in work but I can think of better ways to add value than constantly re-writing the UI! Enough blather from me. This is an excellent book and will grace the shelf of any professional Java architect or developer.

This book is written by the creators of Spring, so Its more complete and advanced than the reference guide. but it's not for beginners. For beginners, you can get pro spring

This is an excellent book, Rod Johnson and his crew explained not only "How"s but "Why"s about Springframework, which is important to people who have known the basics and would like to explore the thought process in those geek's heads. I highly recommented this book to experienced Spring users. For people would like an introduction book, "Spring In Action" is good one to begin with, or get Johnson's "J2EE Development without EJB". The only thing I don't lile about the book is that there is no code download (although it claimed you can download from Wrox site), and also there are typos in code, which I believe it is from Wrox not Johnson. Well, I wish Johnson could publish his future books with Addison Wesley. :-).

This is the book I had been waiting for, taking off where Pro Spring by Harrop & Machacek left me. It is typical in that it gives short examples on the key Spring functionality, but it adds the Acegi Security System for Spring add-on module. The primary advantage of this book is that it not only explains the Spring functionality, but also explains some of the decisions behind the various implementation options and, most importantly, gives best practice information and specific decision points to assist developers in choosing the right option for the situation. The sample web application that finishes up the book is a re-write of the one in Rod Johnson's Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development. A good choice as it allows one to see not only how the framework has grown and matured, but that the architecture is maintainable. Unlike other Wrox 'book by committee' offerings, this one is well organized, tight, and has a common writing style; probably a result of the team working together for so long. Definitely a must have for intermediate Spring Developers! That said, I have two caveats: 1. The book is not an introduction to Spring. If you are new to the framework, I recommend Pro Spring. Then get this one. 2. The book doesn't describe the architectural 'whys'. For that, I recommend Rod Johnson's Expert One-on-One offerings.