Why Spring?

1 The "Struts" framework is no doubt a good framework to enhance the ability of the web tier, but the biggest drawback is the fact that it caters only to the web tier and leaves most of the Enterprise tier or middle tier to the fancy of the application architects.

2 The Application architects need to provide an additional framework to deal with the enterprise tier and make sure that the new framework integrates well with the Struts framework.

3 Spring tries to alleviate this problem by providing a comprehensive framework, which includes an MVC framework, an AOP integration framework, a JDBC integration framework, and an EJB integration framework.

4 It also provides integration modules for major O/R mapping tools like Hibernate and JDO. Spring provides all these in a modular fashion without imposing any layer on to the user.

5 Spring is not a take-it-or- leave-it kind of framework. It tries to seamlessly blend into the existing framework users have without hindrances.

6 Spring also provides transaction management support using Java classes, email support packages using framework classes, web services support through proxies and many more features like the above.

7 As mentioned earlier all these packages are optional and spring does not make any of them mandatory. Spring can seamlessly integrate with existing applications and provide specific functionality that you intend to provide with minimal demands for customization.

8 A user can continue to use Struts for the web tier and top link O/R for the database and meanwhile hook spring to provide e-mail services and web services support. Spring is based on the Inversion of Control/Dependency Injection pattern that has been making rounds in message boards all over the Internet.