Portability is a key factor in the Spring universe. We believe in portability at the framework level: Application components are written against a specific framework (or framework generation), such as Spring 2.5; the framework is then in turn responsible for adapting onto any underlying hosting environment. However, the specific application framework is above and distinct from the hosting environment. A brand-new framework version may be deployed onto an established generation of the hosting platform, as long as the fundamental capabilities of the environment are sufficient. This approach…

Yesterday I gave the opening keynote at the JAX conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. JAX is one of Europe’s largest Java conferences, with over 2,000 attendees. The topic was The Future of Enterprise Java, and I expanded on the themes of my recent blog of predictions, going into more detail about the implications of Java EE 6 and the future of the application server.
I’ve uploaded the slides, which include 8 predictions for an interesting period in the evolution of enterprise Java. This is the first time I've referred to Joseph Stalin, Monica Lewinsky and Monty Python in the same presentation.
…

Spring Security 2.0 has been released. This is a major step forward for the Spring Portfolio. Spring (Acegi) Security is already the Java platform's most widely used enterprise security framework, with over 250,000 downloads on SourceForge and over 20,000 downloads per release. Through making it so much simpler to use, this release will undoubtedly take adoption to a new level.

I'm particularly pleased about this release for a number of reasons:

• It's a great thing for the Spring community. It's (a lot) simpler to use, as well as more powerful. It puts the most powerful enterprise Java security solution within the reach of many more users, pretty much eliminating the hurdles to adoption. See this tutorial for an example of just how much easier it makes it to secure a typical web application. The proliferation of XML bean definitions is a thing of the past.
• It's a continuation of the work of Spring 2.x, through applying the power of a custom XML namespace to enable aggressive defaulting, while still allowing for customization.
• Like Spring 2.5, it exhibits the current Spring Portfolio trend toward radical reduction in the need for XML.
• It's a proof of the value of the SpringSource business model. Our revenue model enables us to invest more than ever in creating open source software. Without being able to hire both Acegi/Spring Security creator Ben Alex and the other major committer, Luke Taylor, this release either wouldn't have occurred or would have been much less extensive.
• It's good for the fairy kingdom.

Acegi/Spring Security creator Ben Alex and Luke Taylor have done a great job. Ben will be talking about Spring Security at Java One next month. If…

Spring Security 2.0.0 is now available.

Download | Changelog | Announcement | Web Site

After almost two years of development, Spring Security 2.0.0 is now available for download. This significant new release replaces Acegi Security as the official security module for Spring applications. It offers substantially simplified configuration, and countless other new capabilities including OpenID, NTLM, JSR 250 annotations, AspectJ pointcut support, domain ACL enhancements, RESTful URI authorization, groups, hierarchical roles, user management API, database-backed "remember me", portlet authentication, additional languages, Web Flow 2.0 support, Spring IDE visualization and auto-completion, enhanced WSS support via Spring Web Services 1.5 and much more.

Three weeks ago, the SpringSource Tool Suite was released. Christian, in charge of this product blogged about it already and we also have a webinar available for those of you that want to get up to speed with all of the functionality it currently offers. In this entry, I wanted to highlight the runtime error reporting functionality specifically.

When I'm programming, sometimes, the console window shows dozens of stack traces due to some error I've caused. Sometimes, I'm lucky and the stack trace looks familiar. If so, then the problem is probably easy to solve. Sometimes however, the…

Dear Spring Community,

We are pleased to announce that Spring Web Flow 2.0.0.RC1 is now available. Download | Documentation

2.0.0.RC1 introduces several new features, and fixes all known issues reported against previous milestones.

We recommend upgrading to 2.0.0.RC1 from previous Web Flow 2 milestones. We also recommend Web Flow 1 users begin evaluating their upgrade to Web Flow 2 at this time, as RC1 introduces comprehensive version 2 documentation, as well as a tool for automating the conversion of version 1 flows to the version 2 syntax.

The best way to get started with Web Flow 2 is to evaluate the reference applications included in the distribution and supplement with the reference guide.  Spring Web Flow 2 requires Spring Framework 2.5.3 and Java 1.4 or above. 

Find the new and noteworthy in the 2.0.0 RC1 release below:

2.0.0.RC1 New and Noteworthy

• Introduced the Web Flow 2 reference guide, available in PDF and HTML format. The new guide is written in "quick reference" style with runnable code examples. Read it on-line, or download the printable PDF.

• Added support for upgrading from Web Flow 1 to 2. Included in this distribution is a WebFlowUpgrader tool capable of converting flows from the version 1 syntax to the version 2 syntax. See the reference guide for instructions on how to use this tool

• Added support for flow definition inheritance. With this feature, A flow may extend one or more flows. A flow state can also extend another state. This feature is used to facilitate reuse between flows and states that share a common structure.

• Introduced Spring Portlet MVC support. See the Portlet section of the reference guide and the booking-mvc-portlet and booking-faces-portlet sample applications for examples.

• Formally introduced the new "Spring Javascript" module, included within spring-js-2.0.0.RC1.jar. This module provides a Javascript abstraction framework for applying client-side behaviors such as form validation and Ajax in a consistent manner. It also bundles a ResourceServlet for serving Javascript and CSS from jars (a CSS framework is included as well). The default UI toolkit this framework builds upon is Dojo 1. Spring's JSF integration module called "Spring Faces" builds on spring-js to provide a lightweight JSF component library for form validation and Ajax.

• Added Spring Faces integration with the RichFaces JSF component library. Rich Faces can be used with the Spring Faces component library or used standalone. A sample application illustrating this integration is available in our JIRA system.

• Added a "jsf-booking" reference application that offers a comparsion between a traditional JSF web application and a Spring web application that uses JSF as the UI component model. Compare jsf-booking with booking-faces to see the differences in the architectural approach and implementation. This comparison is particularly relevant to JSF developers interested in learning more about Spring.

• Introduced support for automatic model binding and validation with Spring MVC. This support provides a concise alternative to manual FormAction setupForm and bindAndValidate calls. This support also allows registration of data input Formatters application wide, reducing the need to manually register PropertyEditors on a view-by-view basis in many cases. Support for suppressing data binding for a event such as a cancel button click is provided. Support for invoking validators by convention is provided. See the booking-mvc sample for an example.

• Introduced view scope. View scope is allocated when a view-state enters and destroyed when a view-state exits. The scope is useful for updating a model specific to one view over a series of Ajax requests. It is also the scope used to manage JSF component state.

• Added support for flow message bundles. Create a messages.properties file in your flow's working directory for the Locales you need to support and off you go.

• Introduced configurable view-state history polices. A view state can preserve its history to support backtracking, discard its history to prevent backtracking, and invalidate all previous history to disallow backtracking after a point of no return. See the new 'history' attribute on the view-state element.

• Refined the flow execution snapshotting process. These refinements capture view-state form values on postback to support restoring those values when backtracking. This preserves edits when going back using the browser back button for data stored in flow scope.

• Simplified flow execution testing by allowing you to jump to any state to begin a test case. See the booking-mvc and booking-faces for examples of flow test cases.
  

• Improved booking-mvc as a reference application showing @Controllers together with Flows. A new FlowHandler concept provides a clean bridge between Controllers and Flows, allowing the two types of handlers to interact in a structured manner. Also improved the organization of the reference application Spring configuration to illustrate best practice.
  

If the tech community were to host their own version of the popular TV show The Biggest Loser (or maybe Celebrity Fit Club) you would see enterprise Java front and center---bloated, overweight, tired, and drained.

The future of enterprise Java is becoming clear. The morbidly obese legacy platforms are in decline, with leaner solutions increasingly used in production as well as in development. Legacy technologies such as EJB are becoming less and less relevant.The lukewarm takeup of Java EE 5 leaves it looking increasingly like the last gasp of traditional J2EE bloatware. Meanwhile, the Java EE 6 specification is finally set to allow for greater modularity, in a radical change which will have important implications for developers and is likely to rejuvenate competition among implementations. As the standards and the products based upon them have gathered pound after pound of cellulite, SOA, Web 2.0 and other infrastructural changes continually impose new requirements that were not foreseen…

It's been a while... for the Amsterdam Java Meetup that is. I've been traveling a lot and haven't been able to organize another meetup past quarter. But here we go again: the (almost) quarterly Amsterdam Java Meetup with free drinks (or at least, the first few rounds) will be hosted in grand-cafe de Jaren in Amsterdam (see below for more info on the location) on the 23rd of May. You can expect many Java devs (usually between 50 and 80 people turn up), technical as well as non-technical discussions and of course, the latest gossip in the Dutch Java industry. We'd love to hear from people from…

Dear Spring community,
We are pleased to announce that Spring Integration 1.0.0.M3 has been released.
Download | Reference Documentation | JavaDoc

To see a list of the new features and improvements since Milestone 2, view the changelog. For more information, visit the Spring Integration Home.

Mark Fisher
Spring Integration Lead