you must be joking!

Better to use annotations during development, and use some kind of tool for externalizing them to an XML file if for some reason you really really think that makes sense, you can do this for example with JPA annotations and some code from Oracle.

I’m not sure why I’d want to do that. I’m pretty sure I would prefer to be able to change my app’s configuration at runtime rather than compile time.

I’m also not sure why describing my dependencies with annotations is going to be easier to understand than describing them in XML files. I imagine I will have to look at many more files to see all the annotations … hmmm … why do I find myself thinking that this is the same problem we face when defining complex workflows ? Might we need the same solutions for both challenges ?

I would not expect that Spring has implemented the ideal way to do this – but why would I expect that ? In my view people speak as though Spring should be the definitive source of so many things rather than what it is – a pioneering framework. I would not expect Spring to be the definitive source of anything. I would expect it to be an awkward implementation of some good ideas derived from some even more awkward implementations of some good and bad ideas that came before.

Speaking of good and bad ideas, I cannot forget that the guys who are arguing so strongly for an annotations-only approach right now are the same guys who brought me EJB 1 & 2 before. At the time those were groundbreaking accomplishments, and I don’t agree with the kind of criticism the basic concepts have drawn over the years, but I do keep in mind that they hung on to some really bad ideas way too long until, essentially, the Spring and Java community forced them to change. They were wrong then and I’m not sure they are right now.

As an aside. my team leader came up to me the other day with a cool possibility – something called JSQL, he explained. Apparently you can use it to put SQL right in your Java code and it has good performance. I hid the body in the small closet reserved for long-term planning and risk assessment activities. It should be years before anyone goes in there …

Are you mad? First of all componentisation isn’t a word so go back and figure out what you’re trying to say. As for testability, Spring makes it EASY to test. Maybe you just don’t know how to do it, but you can introduce mock implementations with ease and compartmentalize anything you want. I don’t even know what documentation has to do with this.

Im with ya Hani… givem hell… you should see what mess Spring has caused on our project. Its been so over-injected that the app looks like a seasoned junkie’s arm (and also performs like one too).

Rod J and the guys at Spring are doing a GOOD job. Sure, they could do better – we all could.

However, they have contributed more to the enterprise Java space that most of us will in a lifetime. They have brought IoC into the mainstream. In the corporate environment that I work in I see people using Spring to great effect: better componentisation, greater testability, better documentation, easier configuration.

I am sure that Guice is great and works well for Google, but if it requires annotations and rebuilds to rewire some components – well that sucks just as much as XML. Maybe more.

It doesn’t mean that it can’t do the job. Sure it can. I doubt that its corporate takeup will be anywhere near Springs takeup. People need to be able to change wiring easily.

That’s the reason why the HiveMind 2 IoC container features annotated modules for service definition and wiring:
http://cwiki.apache.org/HIVEMIND2/newin2annotatedmodules.html

Take a look at this article, on why XML is such a bad choice for so many things.

http://www.sdtimes.com/article/column-20060901-05.html

Basically I have always found XML a good alternative to RDBMS, when it comes to storing simple hierarchical data. As a matter of fact, I use XStream a lot, and for this very purpose.

Other than that, if you are using XML to describe build, document exchange, program flow and things like that, it fails miserably.

That’s why I have always hated ANT, Workflow Engines, BPML, BPEL and like, as they have taken what is best described in code (control flow and logic) and put in XML files.

In the process, they have invented these revolting and obnoxious mini programming languages, using XML syntax.

Same here. WTF?

Feels so good when you see you’re not alone, in the hate-spring team.

Down with Spring XML hell !

There’s one key thing you don’t have to with Spring that you have to with annotations – RECOMPILE. So much of coding these days is configuration, so having that crap extract to xml is fine with me.

Looking at Guice it gives an ok impression at first, but I can see guice users being very random in how they use it, whereas spring apps suggest their own organization.

Even right now with the XML as it is, it’s still completely fine. Yes, annotations would be better but you got to be a pretty choosy SOB to not use it just because of that.

Why is the XML revolting to you? Are you writing your spring beans in notepad that you get confused?

Also, I like Guice but it’s got a long ways to go before it challenges Spring as a true alternative – as you might already know.

C’mon you could’ve picked something better for this post.