Spring Framework 3.0 RC1 released
I'm pleased to announce that we recently released the first Spring 3.0 release candidate (download page). This release completes the key Spring 3.0 feature set. You certainly remember the original Spring 3.0 themes REST and EL; in the meantime, we have been expanding the list significantly:
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Fully Java 5 based: This is the first Spring generation which requires Java 5 or above, with Java 5 syntax used in the entire Spring API as well as in the entire implementation codebase. For example, the BeanFactory API returns generically typed bean instances wherever possible, and ApplicationListeners may declare a specific event type using generics now. For a comparison: In Spring 2.5, the actual Spring core was still JDK 1.4 compatible, while a lot of higher-level functionality was built on Java 5.
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Spring expression language (SpEL): a core expression parser for use in bean definitions, allowing for references to nested bean structures (e.g. properties of other beans) as well as to environmental data structures (e.g. system property values) through a common #{...} syntax in property values. This also serves as a foundation for various expression-based features across the Spring project portfolio.
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