Hi, in Getting Started with Spring Framework,4th edition, on p.108
<bean id="serviceTemplate" class="...ServiceTemplate" depends-on="baseService" abstract ="true"/>
<bean id="someService class="...SomeService" parent="serviceTemplate"/>
<bean id="someOtherService class="...SomeOtherService" parent="serviceTemplate"/>
<bean id="baseService" class=..."BaseServiceImpl"/>
In the above example isting, someService and someOtherService child bean definitions of serviceTemplate don't inherit the depends-on attribute from the serviceTemplate bean definition. As the String container creates beans in the order in which they are defined in the application context XML file, the baseService bean is created after the creation of someService and someOtherService.
I think the baseService bean is created before the the creation of someService , someOtherService and even serviceTemplate bean.
It is because the first bean in the above serviceTemplate bean depends on baseService. So, the Spring container should create baseService bean first before the serviceTemplate.