This post is based on Packt’s course on Coursera
Why Spring Boot?
Building web applications with plain Spring Framework can be slow and complex. Developers often spend too much time on setup instead of writing actual features.
Spring Boot was created to solve this problem. It offers smart defaults and ready made tools that speed up configuration. This lets developers focus on building the application logic instead of wiring everything by hand.
Spring Boot Features Overview
- Spring Initializr: A quick way to generate a new project with the dependencies you need.
- Starter Projects: Predefined dependency bundles that remove the guesswork from setup.
- Auto Configuration: Automatically configures your app based on the libraries you include.
- Developer Tools: Features like automatic restarts that speed up your development cycle.
- Actuator: Built in tools for monitoring and managing your application in production.'
Spring Boot vs Spring MVC vs Spring Framework
- Spring Framework is the core foundation, providing dependency injection and other base features.
- Spring MVC is a module built on top of Spring Framework for building web applications.
- Spring Boot sits on top of both, adding automation and convention to make development faster.
Spring Initializr
On this site, you choose your build tool such as Maven, your language such as Java, and your Spring Boot version. It is best to pick a stable release rather than a milestone version. You also fill in project metadata, including the Group ID, which works like a package name, and the Artifact ID, which works like a class name.
Finally, you select the dependencies you need, such as Spring Web for building REST APIs.
IDE
I personally keep my choice of IDE consistent, using JetBrains - IntelliJ IDEA products.
However, you can also use
- Eclipse (with Spring Tools Suite plugin) is one of the most common choices, especially for beginners and in many Spring courses.
- IntelliJ IDEA (Community or Ultimate edition) is very popular among professional developers. The Ultimate edition has built in Spring Boot support, while the Community edition works fine too with some plugins.
- Spring Tool Suite (STS) is a standalone IDE built specifically for Spring development. It is essentially Eclipse with Spring specific tools and templates pre installed.
- Visual Studio Code can also be used with Java and Spring Boot extensions, though it requires a bit more setup compared to the dedicated Java IDEs above.
- NetBeans works as well, though it is less commonly used for Spring Boot compared to the options above.
