[Springframework-developer] 1.0 M4 ready for release

[<jue...@we...>]

Hi everybody,
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First of all, a happy new year! It's been a great year 2003, =
particularly considering that the Spring Framework project didn't even =
exist 12 months ago (we'll celebrate first birthday in February). Of =
course, the framework version that came with Rod's book was already =
there: But we've seen massive refinement of the framework since, even =
exploring completely new areas like AOP support and transaction =
management, and have attracted a significant number of users (with about =
3000 downloads per release since 1.0 M1). I'd like to thank everybody =
for their contributions, no matter what kind, in what area, and to what =
extent!
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I've just finished my preparations of our upcoming release 1.0 M4. In =
good old Spring Framework tradition, a last minute change in the core =
has sneaked in: I've introduced the core.io package with its Resource =
interface and out-of-the-box implementations ClassPathResource, =
FileSystemResource, etc. It's used in the BeanDefinitionRegistry area, =
and also for all former "configLocation" Strings - they are all of type =
Resource now. Thanks to an automatically registered PropertyEditor, =
specifying String paths in bean definitions works just like before, but =
the receiving beans do not have to be ApplicationContextAware anymore to =
be able to resolve resource locations in a generic way.
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As most people have already found out, 1.0 M4 introduces our version of =
Clinton Begin's JPetStore, with a Spring-managed middle tier that =
leverages our new iBATIS Database Layer integration, and alternative =
Spring Web MVC and Struts web tiers. A recent addition is remoting =
support: The out-of-the-box JPetStore illustrates remoting via Hessian, =
Burlap, RMI, and our new JAX-RPC support via Axis. Like Clinton's =
original version did with Axis, we export an OrderService. An included =
OrderServiceClient invokes the OrderService to show an order by number, =
via all configured protocols. This should work without hassle via the =
included Ant scripts and the readme.
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I'll release 1.0 M4 tomorrow night, sort of a new year's present for the =
Spring community ;-) Everybody who has some time left, please give the =
current CVS contents a try, particularly "playing user": Generate a =
release zip, unzip it, build the samples, deploy the samples. Note that =
as of 1.0 M4, there are two release zips: "spring-framework-1.0-m4" with =
everything but third-party libraries (~8 MB), and =
"spring-framework-1.0-m4-with-dependencies" which includes all libraries =
that are required for building the samples and the framework itself =
(~16.8 MB). Both distributions ship with build scripts and all sources =
and tests.
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Regards,
Juergen