Learning How to Use Annotations in Spring

[Pam Hol]

Hi,

I've been using Craig Wall's "Spring in Action" and "Pro Spring 2.5". They are both good and useful books, but it feels like annotations were added after Craig's book and before the Apress one. Can anyone recommend any good articles/tutorials/books to help me fill in the gap?

[David Newton]

What gap are you looking to fill? If they were added before the latter book...?

[Pam Hol]

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Annotations were added to Spring after the Walls book was written. I don't think the Machacek book covers them. I got the impression they were added in Spring 2 and Machacek et all is focusing on Spring 2.5. Perhaps I'm just not looking in the right place. It's a big book and I haven't worked through all the chapters yet but I've been all the way through the Spring MVC sections. I see examples on the web like this one: http://www.vaannila.com/spring/spring-annotation-controller-1.html and I would like to read the background/foundational material instead of trying to infer the rules from examples (because I think I tried that before and I must have missed something).

[Mark Spritzler]

Pam Hol wrote:I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Annotations were added to Spring after the Walls book was written. I don't think the Machacek book covers them. I got the impression they were added in Spring 2 and Machacek et all is focusing on Spring 2.5. Perhaps I'm just not looking in the right place. It's a big book and I haven't worked through all the chapters yet but I've been all the way through the Spring MVC sections. I see examples on the web like this one: http://www.vaannila.com/spring/spring-annotation-controller-1.html and I would like to read the background/foundational material instead of trying to infer the rules from examples (because I think I tried that before and I must have missed something).

Basically, you are correct Spring In Action covers Spring 2.0, not 2.5 so no annotations. Pro Spring 2.5 covers some Annotations, but not all. I expect a new Spring in Action on Spring 3.0 to come out this year, I hope. And I am sure some Spring 3.0 books are in the works right now and soon to be released.

In the meantime, reading the docs from www.springframework.org on 3.0 will cover all the Annotations.

Mark

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Mark Spritzler wrote:I expect a new Spring in Action on Spring 3.0 to come out this year, I hope.

Manning's Spring 3 in Action has a print publication date of this summer. It is available via MEAP (Manning early access program) now where you buy the PDF and they send you chapters as they get written. Chapter 3 covers annotations and is available now. It is in draft form, but the quality is good. (I'm on chapter 2.) We are also promoting that title here in early March.

[Pam Hol]

More good advice. I normally don't like to buy books without looking at them or at least reading a review or two but since the previous edition was excellent, I've gone ahead and purchased it. Thanks!

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Pam,
If it makes you feel any better, you can see I give the two chapters I've read a good review. Can't type it up until MEAP is over, but it absolutely worth buying!