What is a Spring Framework?
Spring is a powerful open-source, application framework created to reduce the complexity of enterprise application development. Millions of developers around the world use Spring Framework to create high performing, easily testable, and reusable code. Spring is lightweight when it comes to size and transparency. The basic version of the spring framework is around 2MB. It has layered architecture, which allows you to select the components to use, while also providing a cohesive framework for J2EE application development. Spring framework is also called the framework of frameworks as it provides support to various other frameworks such as Struts, Hibernate, Tapestry, EJB, JSF, etc.
Benefits of Using the Spring Framework
- Spring allows developers to enhance enterprise-class applications using POJOs. The advantage of using only POJOs is that you do not need an EJB container product such as an application server however you have the choice of using only a robust servlet container such as Tomcat or some commercial product.
- Spring is organized in a modular fashion. Even though the number of packages and classes are substantial, you have to fear only about the ones you want and ignore the rest.
- Spring does not reinvent the wheel rather it certainly makes use of some of the current technologies like various ORM frameworks, logging frameworks, JEE, Quartz, and JDK timers, and other view technologies.
- Testing an application written with Spring is simple because environment-dependent code is moved into this framework. Furthermore, by using JavaBean style POJOs, it will become simpler to use dependency injection for injecting test data.
- Spring’s web framework is a well-designed web MVC framework, which offers an excellent choice to web frameworks such as Struts or other over-engineered or less popular web frameworks.
- Spring offers a convenient API to translate technology-specific exceptions thrown by JDBC, Hibernate, or JDO into consistent, unchecked exceptions.
- Lightweight IoC containers tend to be lightweight, particularly when compared to EJB containers, for example. This is beneficial for developing and deploying functions on computers with confined memory and CPU resources.
- Spring affords a consistent transaction management interface that can scale down to a local transaction using a single database and scale up to global transactions using JTA.
Brief about Oracle ADF
Oracle ADF is an end-to-end Java EE framework that simplifies application development by providing out-of-the-box infrastructure services and visual and declarative development experience. Oracle ADF simplifies Java EE development by minimizing the need to write code that implements the application’s infrastructure allowing the developers to focus on the features of the actual application. Oracle ADF provides these infrastructure implementations as part of the framework. It also implements the Model-View-Controller design pattern and offers an integrated solution that covers all the layers of the architecture integrated with the Oracle SOA and WebCenter Portal frameworks. You can use this framework to provide enterprise solutions across different platforms. You can build applications that search, display, create, modify, and validate data for web, web services, desktop, or mobile interfaces. You use Oracle JDeveloper with Oracle ADF to develop applications with an environment that supports the full development lifecycle of design, test, and deployment. After you have developed and tested your ADF application in test environments, you can deploy your application to production environments using the tools. You can monitor the performance and can also manage and configure properties and attributes.
ADF is used at Oracle for all next-generation web user interfaces like CRM, HCM, and many more.
- Increase Productivity & ease of use
- Promote service-oriented development
- Standards-based on Java EE, SOA, SDO or SCA
- End to end coverage like MVC, security, customization Anyone can use this providing robust, performance, and maintainable applications
Differences in spring and ADF
| Parameters | Spring Framework | Oracle ADF Framework |
| Framework | Action-based | Component-based |
| Source code | Developer has to write source code for all the UI components | Built-in UI components and Rich look & feel |
| Database connection | Developer has to explicitly write Database connectivity code to retrieve connection | Built-in configuration of database connectivity, no explicit retrieval required |
| SQL Statements | Developer has to write SQL statements and execute them | Declarative approach builds the required SQL statements |
| Transactions | Developer has to take care of Transaction management | Transactions are managed by the framework |
| Page navigation | Page navigations are primarily based on the config XML documents which have to be taken care of by the Developer | Controller takes care of page navigations when declaratively given |
| Validations | Each validation have to be written in validation logic specific techniques and each validation error should be managed separately and navigated to respective error pages | Sophisticated validation hookups provided through ADF at various levels UI level, AM Level, and Entity Level |
| Security | User has to design and develop a user login UI page | Declarative strategy to security permits the developers to provide security at various levels to pages, regions, tabs, sections, components. |
| Authentication | Developer has to verify username and password against the data source provided | Though it is not a direct feature of ADF, Weblogic provides various ways to authentication to which an ADF application can easily coupled with SQLAuthentication, SAMLAuthentication, LDAP Authentication, etc. |
| Development Time | To build a normal CRUD operation module, developers take 3 days on an average | To build a regular CRUD operation module, developers want 10 minutes on an average, having suitable AM, EO, VO configured |
| License | Open source frameworks | Open source for development and Licensed production version |
| Servers | Framework can make use of web application servers like Apache tomcat, Websphere, JBoss etc., as external third party servers | Built-in Weblogic server configurations make deployment much easier |
Conclusion:
Go Through all the factors mentioned in the above article and choose the best to upgrade in the future career.
