Making the most of available resources for Spring Boot
Whether you’re a long time user of Spring Boot or just getting started with it, there are numerous resources out there that you can leverage. Knowing what’s available for your specific need is not always obvious and this blog post is aimed toward helping you to navigate through these resources.
Learning
Reference Documentation
As a software developer, you probably already know that reading any project’s documentation can help you save a lot of time and effort. The Spring Boot reference documentation is a comprehensive document containing everything you need to know about Spring Boot. It is available in multiple formats, multi-page HTML, single-page HTML, and PDF. You can choose the one that suits your needs. The documentation is versioned, with current
pointing to the latest GA release. Be sure to read the documentation of the version that you are currently on. For example, if you’re on Spring Boot 2.3.8, the reference documentation would be available at https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/2.3.8.RELEASE/reference/htmlsingle/.
Spring Boot builds on a number of other projects, each with their own reference documentation. You can find a complete list of these projects and their documentation here.
Spring Guides
The reference documentation is information-oriented and while it contains a wealth of information, it can be a bit overwhelming for newcomers. If you’re looking to get started with Spring Boot or try out specific real-world scenarios, Spring Guides provide a curated list of hands-on instructions that you can follow.