What is Spring?

The Spring framework started out as just an inversion of control container. It was conceived to reduce or replace some of the complex configuration of earlier Java Enterprise Edition development. Spring was later built around using Java without EJBs.

So its original concept was how to work better with EJBs, and then they realized that they just kind of need those for a lot of situations, so it kind of transitioned into, Okay, how do I do the same development without using EJBs? So again, what is Spring? Well, it is a framework built around reducing the complexities around Enterprise Java development, and later, also providing enterprise development without EJBs.

Spring can essentially be used with or without EJBs and typically, now is used without them. This is an important point because Spring enabled us to do Enterprise development without using an application server. A lot of people don't realize that Tomcat really isn't an application server, it's just a web server. This is one of the reasons that Tomcat has taken over for the Java development standard container. It's easy to use, it's lightweight, and until Spring,