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Are there any disadvantages to tie my application to Spring framework?
I'm not talking about bugs or issues if any. I'm talking about strategic architectural things that will influence on my application lifestyle.
Should I prefer Spring over Java EE core features supported by EE container? What are advantages?

Thanks.

Mike
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    entirely subjective. Both work. – Bozho Feb 02 '11 at 15:34
  • This would be a good question for http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ – Michael K Feb 02 '11 at 15:36
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    Many previous questions like this exist: e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/68527/should-i-use-ejb3-or-spring-for-my-business-layer , http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1735741/which-is-better-to-continue-java-ee-or-spring-framework , http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1281748/which-one-should-i-learn-springhibernate-or-java-ee etc. – Sean Patrick Floyd Feb 02 '11 at 15:38
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    Voted to reopen in order to migrate to http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ , subjective as it is. – Dr. belisarius Feb 02 '11 at 15:45
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    Also voted to reopen for the same reasons as belisarius. – Platinum Azure Feb 02 '11 at 16:07

2 Answers2

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the standard disadvantage for any technology decision applies: If you chose Spring and later want to revert to pure Java EE, there will be some work (or a lot depending on how you use spring) in making the transition.

Note that Spring is battle tested framework used by probably 10s of thousands of java applications (probably more). Its not like its a 'fringe' technology that might not be supported in the future.

Either is a fine choice.

Arjan Tijms
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hvgotcodes
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  • yes, but a) Spring has become an industry standard of it's own, the risk of a company needing to port a spring app to non-spring-Java-ee is small and b) in Spring 3, Spring tries to embrace as many standard APIs as possible (including JEE), making an application's coupling to spring minimal (and hence facilitating a possible transition) – Sean Patrick Floyd Feb 02 '11 at 15:42
  • @sean, right. To your first point, that was what i was trying to convey in my second paragraph. – hvgotcodes Feb 02 '11 at 15:43
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First of all, you might want to consider list down all the components within your application into differen boxes. Identify each boxes with the right technology that you want to adopt for delivery.

Then see if any of these technologies being planned for has an opportunity to work with Springframework. The current springframework supports alot of third party integration from logging to ORM.

From here you would see the benefits or justification of whether should you adopt Springframework or not.

The key point here is to look at CBA (Cost Benefit Analysis) but rather making your application architecture fits into any choice of framework you come across. The simplest layman question to be answer is: DO I NEED IT TO WORK?

d4v1dv00
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