The first version of Spring Framework focused on making applications testable. However, as time moved on, there were new challenges. Spring Framework managed to evolve and stay ahead of the curve with the flexibility and modules that are offered. A couple of examples are listed as follows:
- Annotations were introduced in Java 5. Spring Framework (version 2.5 – Nov 2007) was ahead of Java EE in introducing an annotation-based controller model for Spring MVC. Developers using Java EE had to wait until Java EE 6 (Dec 2009 – 2 years) before having comparable functionality.
- Spring Framework introduced a number of abstractions ahead of Java EE to keep the application decoupled from specific implementation. Caching API ...