Spring Start Here: Learn what you need and learn it well

by Laurentiu Spilca

Quickly master the massive Spring ecosystem with this focused, hands-on guide that teaches you exactly what you need to know.

In Spring Start Here , you will learn how

Build web applications with Spring
Manage application objects with Spring context
Implement data persistence using data sources and transactions
Implement data exchange between applications using REST services
Utilize Spring Boot's convention-over-configuration approach
Write unit and integration tests for apps implemented with Spring
Minimize work when building any kind of app
Persisting data in a Spring application using the latest approach

Spring Start Here introduces you to Java development with Spring by concentrating on the core concepts you'll use in every application you build. You'll learn how to refactor an existing application to Spring, how to use Spring tools to make SQL database requests and REST calls, and how to secure your projects with Spring Security. There's always more to learn, and this book will make your next steps much easier.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the technology
For Java developers, Spring is the must-learn framework. This incredible development tool powers everything from small business ecommerce applications to enterprise-scale microservices. Mastering Spring is a long journey. Taking your first step is easy! Start here.

About the book
Spring Start Here teaches Java developers how to build applications using Spring framework. Informative graphics, relevant examples, and author Laurentiu Spilca's clear and lively writing make it easy to pick up the skills you need. You'll discover how to plan, write, and test applications. And by concentrating on the most important features, this no-nonsense book gives you a firm foundation for exploring Spring's rich ecosystem.

What's inside

Build web applications with Spring
Minimize repetition and manual work
Persisting data in a Spring application
HTTP and REST-based web services
Testing your Spring implementations

About the reader
For readers with beginning to intermediate Java skills.

About the author
Lauren?iu Spilca is a skilled Java and Spring developer and an experienced technology instructor.

Table of Contents
PART 1 FUNDAMENTALS
1 Spring in the real world
2 The Spring Defining beans
3 The Spring Wiring beans
4 The Spring Using abstractions
5 The Spring Bean scopes and life cycle
6 Using aspects with Spring AOP
PART 2 IMPLEMENTATION
7 Understanding Spring Boot and Spring MVC
8 Implementing web apps with Spring Boot and Spring MVC
9 Using the Spring web scopes
10 Implementing REST services
11 Consuming REST endpoints
12 Using data sources in Spring apps
13 Using transactions in Spring apps
14 Implementing data persistence with Spring Data
15 Testing your Spring app

Genres: Programming, Software, Technology, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Technical

416 pages, Paperback

Published November 2, 2021

Reviews

[Cristian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for a quick overview of Spring fundamentals as well as some other commonly used technologies (e.g. HikariCP) and Spring projects (such as Spring Data). The exposition is generally clear and easy to follow, albeit somewhat repetitive, because a common theme is that similar information is mentioned in a paragraph, in the figure or image accompanying the paragraph, and in the caption of the image. Had that been condensed, then the book could be a bit more concise, but I ended up learning to skim and skip whenever I saw the pattern coming.

Some details I think could be improved for a future edition are:

* When going over session scoped beans and using one in a singleton, it's never properly explained that what Spring is injecting is actually a proxy, and that's how redirecting to the right session-scoped bean is achieved, because using @SessionScope includes proxyMode TARGET_CLASS). One could get the wrong idea that using @Scope("session") would be the same, when it wouldn't.
* Though it warns against misuse of Aspects, it doesn't provide much guidance as to when they are appropriate. In particular, there is no mention of "cross-cutting concerns", which are their raison d'etre.
* When going over unit tests, it shows examples where dependencies such as a DAO are mocked. This follows the so called London school of testing, where the unit is a class and all but immutable dependencies should be mocked. I don't agree with this since I think that Vladimir Khorikov expressed a solid case against it in his book "Unit Testing: Principles, Practices, and Patterns". But proponents of this won't agree, so let's just leave it at that.
* It recommends the usage of an in-memory DB such as H2. A better recommendation is testing against the exact same DBMS used in production by using testcontainers. Most of the time a DB such as H2 or HSQLDB is fine, but from time to time there are small discrepancies with other databases such as MySQL or SQL Server, which cause either false positives or false negatives. Using testcontainers to test against the same database used in production avoids these issues and provides better assurance.

These things aside, I highly recommend it as a first book on Spring.

[RorSpike · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book for Spring beginner.

[Dawid]

springbros... we are so back!!!

[pandapoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice book to get an overview of Spring framework. Some chapters are really not worth it and you better skip them. There is some duplication but in general is easy to read.

[Himanshu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to get started with Spring ecosystem.

[Claudia V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great source! I finished this book in a week so I was hooked! I already used some of the concepts described here in one of my projects.

Pros:
- the author explains the concepts plainly without getting overly technical in a structured, non repetitive manner
- he makes use of analogies, diagrams and even some 'comic books' panels to explain things
- code is for the most part self-explanatory, without the need to go into the source to search for some magical not exposed or explained 'support' code
- it's mostly self contained, so you don't have to go search for other tutorials or stackoverflow threads to accomplish something the author asks you to do
- at the time of my writing, everything is up to date and functional (no obsolete, deprecated libraries or errors stemmed from outdated versions)
- the author is nice enough to provide some 'further reading' materials in the annex

Cons:
- price: for the e-book version (25$ on sale at time of writing lol) is a bit too expensive, you can find cheaper, more complex courses on Udemy, and without it being overly complicated or long book, I have no idea why is it so expensive; this honestly is the biggest drawback for me and the greatest deterrent when buying such books
- code structure: the classes themselves are not shown to have any structure, so you might be tempted to put everything in the same package (this will cause problems later on), so you have to go into the source code to study the structure; this could have been easily solved by putting a com.x.y.z package instruction at the beginning of each listing

[Romain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book, very clear explanations, great examples. If you're not clear on what dependency injection is, or what Spring does, I highly recommend this book. One of the best programming books I've read.

[Jilles Soeters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been working with Spring for a few years and thought I understood it well. Turns out I did miss some foundational knowledge about how Spring beans work within the Spring Application Context. I would recommend the first half of this book to anyone using Spring or planning to use Spring. The second half of the book is good too, but that information you can find in the docs. It's really the first half of the book that makes it a 5 star book to me.

[Pawel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spring is much more than just a web framework! The first part of the book is a killer. It explains the most important Spring concepts in high detail with many practice exercises. Using this book I’ve spent more time in IDE implementing the concepts and testing than actually reading the book.

The second part comes a bit weaker for me, sometimes not diving deep enough and sometimes taking too many pages to explain a simple thing. It’s still worth a read, but the true gem lies in the first part.

[Jakub Majer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent first book for everyone that wants to learn Spring/Spring Boot.
Some java knowledge is required to get the most of this book, but nothing to advanced: knowing object oriented programming concepts will help you get the most out of this book.

[BabyLunLun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book that deserved to be reread

Simple language that is easy to understand and the author just know the right time to put in images to strengthen your understanding of the concept. Its exactly what you need to be reading if you are just starting in Spring Framework

[Reuben · Rating 3 out of 5]

good summary if the existing tools provided by and within spring.

It gives a great overview without going too much into details. A great jumpstart for delving deeper into specific areas of spring.

Don't be afraid to skim overly talky sections or areas you are already familiar with.

[0vai5 · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay book to get idea of spring. It touches most of the topics in spring and gives a decent idea about spring ecosystem.
A little verbose especially while explaining in the introduction of each chapter on what it is going to cover.

[Haidar Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the best book I've ever read on any framework. Period.

The author's style naturally forces you to understand how this behemoth of a framework works and how to use it. I highly recommend it to any beginner who is just getting started with the framework.

[Robert-Nick Revnic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book for Spring introduction. Although some parts are repeated too often, it helps the information stick better if someone is a complete beginner.

[Jia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on learning Spring.

[Kamil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best introduction to Spring that is available.

[Miroslav Vergov]

In terms of introduction into Spring I think this is a near perfect read!

[Yaroslav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book to start with. It's a bit worldly, but that's the point—to understand everything from scratch and remember it.

[Watsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book on getting started with Spring boot based development. Written in a lucid manner and explained the fundamentals of spring ecosystem and some of the most important frameworks very well. This includes -Spring Core, data and test. Of course there is much more to be learned after this about other spring frameworks but with the concepts understood it will be much easier to do so. Read this before reading Craig Wall’s Spring in action book.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a junior Java developer just starting with Spring, I found this book extremely helpful in dispelling some of the magic of Spring.

It begins by explaining what Spring is: the Spring framework itself vs the Spring ecosystem including Spring Boot. The book then covers the fundamentals of the Spring framework: the context, beans, annotations, dependency injection and aspect-oriented programming. Further chapters explore other useful parts of the Spring ecosystem like Spring Boot, Spring Web and Spring Data.

Code examples are thoroughly explained in the text, supplemented by diagrams illustrating behaviour. All the code in the book is available online, with snapshots for every section to illustrate each technique.

Appendices cover related topics (such as architectural approaches and HTTP) in enough detail to understand the main text if you're unfamiliar.

[Jananee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent resource for beginners and for experienced developers to refresh Spring skills and learn best practices. Explains the fundamental concepts well. There is quite a bit of repetition (same explanation in text, figures, and subtext in figures) which can be skipped but I guess it would be helpful for beginners to reinforce what they learn. Wish it covered more topics in the Spring ecosystem. The author's Spring Security in Action book is also good and thorough. Instead of reading a multitude of articles on Spring and Spring boot and gaining partial knowledge and learning bad coding practices, I would recommend starting with this book for a solid foundation.

[Andrei · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a second read i changed my rating from 4 to 5. I think this is an very good book to read to refresh some concepts, for the experienced developer, and a good starting point for beginners.
I always recommend this book to new colleagues and they always say it's an awsome book.