On this week I was speaking on UA Web Challenge Conference in BackEnd section. I’ve chosen strange topic of my talk – “SpringIO for startups”. What is the result of it? I’m going to summarise below.
Within three past years I’ve been developed different personal web projects. I never called them “startups” further more no one from them are in production now. I’ve tried different server side technologies – Java (Spring Framework 2.5 – 4.0), JavaScript (ExpressJS, SailsJS), Scala (PlayFramework!). This experience allows me speak about Spring in context of startups. That’s how I decided to choose this topic.
Moving through the slides you probably will not be able to understand everything I’ve told in my speech but essential parts I want repeat here. Note: Each time I said Spring I mean SpringIO (platform).
Development speed
Comparing with NodeJS and PlayFramework, Spring can not be a winner. Spring is much more verbose and requires more boilerplate code. In the same time the Spring code is pretty simple and transparent. Hence this minus can become a plus in context of code readability. So using Spring in a startup prepare yourself for pretty large amount of code. One important enhancement is Boot. With this module you can increase the speed of a project sceleton creation.
Convenience
Spring implies use of Java. That’s the first point why it is convenient (Java syntax is handy). Also it provides DI (Dependency Injection), easy and readable API declaration. A lot of functionality delegated to annotations, so instead XML you write Java code.
Confidence
Spring is mature. Since 2003 it acquired many fans. So Spring community is one of the most valuable advantages. Doesn’t matter what you are developing. If you encounter on some problem Spring community always helps to find a right answer (StackOverFlow).
Spring has a lot of modules (Data, Security, Integration etc), good practices, cook books. In 90% of cases development process becomes like a LEGO game – just build from blocks what you want.
Spring IO for startups from Alex Fruzenshtein
PS
When I started my preparation for this speech I decided to contact someone from Spring contributors. The main reason is to show “Expert’s opinion”. That was really good idea. Big thanks to Oliver Gierke for his input. The audience was happy to hear authoritative words regarding the Spring usage in startups. In my turn I was happy to ensure that my thoughts more or less match to Oliver’s =)
Summary
I recommend Java developers to use Spring in startups, for the rest of developers it will be painful in some sense =) Experience of this speech is very valuable for me and in the nearest time “Startup” category will appear on my blog.
| Reference: | UA Web Challenge Conference: SpringIO for startups from our JCG partner Alexey Zvolinskiy at the Fruzenshtein’s notes blog. |
