Is Spring Framework becoming a configuration nightmare?

I had a crappy day dealing with Spring Framework 3.0 M4. I've been using Spring since 2004 and I've been a big fan of its use. Lately however, I've become concerned that Spring Framework is turning into another EJB, a configuration monster. I've been using Spring 3.0 M1 for a while now and recently upgraded to M4 to get access to some new Spring MVC annotations, @RequestBody and @ResponseBody. These annotations allow you to bind directly to the request body and response body, respectively. They're very helpful if you are using Spring MVC for ReSTful web services. They seemed relatively innocuous, but after some time with them, they are much more complicated to configure than one might expect from Spring. Still don't have a working solution with these new annotations. Part of it is the documentation isn't where it needs to be, but that will hopefully be remedied by the time 3.0 is GA. In the meantime, I'm stuck on the damn configuration of view resolvers, mapping adapters, and what not. Configuration kills! I've had the chance to work on Grails and I must say, I am very much longing for another opportunity to work on that platform. I realize that Grails uses Spring, but Grails also keeps Spring away from, behind the covers for the most part, so I can build solutions for my client instead of muddling through configuration acrobatics.

Tomcat Expert Series here in Minneapolis

Attended the SpringSource Tomcat Expert Series seminar here in Minneapolis this morning at the Hyatt Regency. Filip Hanik of SpringSource presented. Filip is a major committer to the Apache Tomcat project. Excellent technical presentations on Tomcat and JVM performance tuning tips and debugging JVM memory and thread issues. Lots of good information around Sun's generational heap and garbage collecting the heap, If you get a chance to take this presentation in, you won't regret it. $75 USD for 3.5 hours and a nice lunch. Seemed like a nice turn out, probably 120 or so attendees. SpringSource seems to be picking up momentum in the JVM space with recent acquisitions of G2One (Groovy and Grails consulting and development) and Hyperic (web application monitoring and management tooling). Could be well positioned when the economy comes out of this funk it's currently in.

Finished my contract at Thomson West

Well, yesterday was my last day at Thomson West in Eagan. Good 6 month gig. Went in, built some new functionality for a new product that Thomson West is coming out with, and got out. The middle part of the summer was a bit hairy (I worked a couple of 45-52 hour weeks), but for the most part, it was a very straightforward project.

I think the big take away for me on this project was how well Spring Framework worked We had one, I said one, EJB...a message-driven bean. The rest of the system was built using normal Java objects configured in Spring application context files. This allowed us to concentrate on building business logic and not worry about EJB/J2EE issues. We also did all of our testing outside the J2EE container (in this case, the J2EE container was IBM WebSphere Application Server 5.1.2). A nice side effect of all this was that myself and another senior developer could use our Java IDE of choice--JetBrains' most excellent IntelliJ IDEA.

Spring was a big differentiator for that project--it allowed us to build value and deliver value to the client, thus building confidence in the client with regard to our abilities and skill levels. The group that I consulted with are super happy with how well Spring worked on this project and will be integrating Spring into more of their applications and ridding themselves of EJB cruftiness over time. I don't get the sense that they're interested in any of the EJB 3.0 stuff coming out and will stick with Spring and best of breed tools and frameworks in the future. The way it should be. Thoroughly enjoyable!

Next up is UnitedHealth Group's Ovations division. Big change here--.NET Framework, ASP.NET, AJAX. Looking forward to the challenges this new opportunity will present.