Thoughts on software.

For people who are in the process of learning about the spring framework, as applied to web applications, thought I should share this useful link...

This covers Spring MVC, integration with DOJO, Acegi Security, Spring support for REST, and much more. This is a demo application that is just right for learning: not too much domain, covers all the layers right from the user interface where Stefan Schmidt (the author of the sample application, spring finance manager, in question) demonstrates the use of DOJO, to the use of domain driven approach with the services and repositories. Best of all, its configuration is completely annotation based, which in my opinion is so much better (read easier) than the verbose xml.

There are even some unit tests, but that's only for the service layer. These unit tests are not comprehensive enough. Again, I'm not quite sure if the service layer is the best place for all the tests, I would have preferred some for the controllers as well, but then I'm a beginner at test driven apps, and this is just a demo application. The only valid criticism of this app would be that it attempts to pack way too much new spring stuff into the code. The later explanations could also have been a little more detailed. Still, great job.