Imagine that you have completed your CodeGym training and started looking for your first job. While doing this you may come across job requirements frameworks and tools you have yet to try.
That’s why we're launching a series of articles to help you understand which Java tools are used in different projects and at what stage in your developer's career you should learn them. The first article will explain the most popular framework — Spring Framework.
Spring Framework: What Is It?
Spring is a popular framework that Java developers use. Simply put, a framework is like a grocery set for a pie. Of course, you can write a web application without a framework, but it’ll be much more difficult.
Let’s return to our pie example. How do you cook it if you don’t have your grocery set? You’d have to go to the countryside and grow wheat and fruit, harvest the crops, and make a pie. Or you can simplify the process and buy a ready-made food set, i.e., a framework.
The code that utilizes a framework demonstrates the high-performance and is easy to test.
One of the main advantages of Spring is that it introduces dependencies between objects, which a developer would have to add manually if there wasn’t such thing as a Spring framework. The developer only needs to describe the relationships between objects — the framework will do the rest for you. It is a set of functionalities that will work.
What Is the Demand for Spring?
Developers use Spring in a majority of Java-based projects. The demand for this framework has steadily grown since its creation in 2003. You can look at the popularity dynamics on the ItJobsWatch site — 2% of all developer vacancies in the UK are for developers who are proficient in Spring. The average salary is about £67 thousand per year.
According to research on the StackOverflow resource, 16.13% of developers in all programming languages choose Spring Framework — it is in the 4th place in popularity among web frameworks. Of course, if we talk exclusively about Java developers, it’s all 95%.
Which Projects Require Implementation of Spring Framework?
Practically all of the Java projects and programs. Let's list the main ones:
Web applications;
Applications that use databases;
Cloud services;
Android applications.
Spring consists of separate components that allow you to work with the listed types of projects and many others. For example, Spring Web (to create web applications), Spring Security (to secure the application and set up authorization and authentication), and Spring Boot (to simplify the configuration of applications on Spring).
When and How to Learn It?
A junior should know the basics of Spring Framework. When a newbie has learned Core Java, the Git version control system, figured out the basics of networking, and how to create simple servlets, he can start learning Spring.
It may take one or two months for you to master this framework on top of your programming background knowledge. A month may be enough to write your first simple project. You will need much more time to learn the framework thoroughly as it constantly develops. Here are some opinions of developers:
"Almost all the examples of using the Spring you'll come across work on servlets. So start learning servlets in advance. You don’t need to go too deep; just understand the technology — what it is and how it works. I advise starting a training project and trying to change existing processes rather than writing from scratch. Why so? From the real project, you’ll surely learn which technologies are constantly used and which ones are secondary and replaceable," — says developer Alex.
"It makes sense to talk about learning the Spring environment only if you are familiar with Java, databases, object-oriented programming techniques, web technologies, and other basic software development skills. The Spring framework does not exist in a vacuum," — says Java Developer Ivan Mushketyk.
GO TO FULL VERSION