Thread: Re: [Springframework-developer] Thanks to all the Spring developers

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Rod,

First and foremost more, better, free(hopefully) documentation, preferably as a PDF so it can be printed.  Your book is excellent, and well worth the price and I haven't even finished it.  (I've been swamped with stuff so I am only at the beginning of chapter 7, so I haven't even gotten to the juicy stuff.)  But, having to read a 680 page book in order to use a framework sucks.

Even worse is that the framework has evolved since the time the book was printed (it doesn't cover hibernate, etc).  As time goes on I am sure the book, and the development of the framework will diverge even more.  A PDF available on the website could be kept up to date as the project evolves and always be a valuable resource for newbies to the framework, or a good reference for those who have been using it for a while.

I would definetly recommend creating the doc in PDF format because it is much easier to read / digest offline, and can act as a good resource when internet access is not available.  HTML never prints nicely, even pages that are "printer friendly".  The PDF docs available from the Hibernate project are excellent examples of quality free documentation for a project.

I think a quality set of documentation with some good examples would go along way in making the use / understanding of Spring much easier.  It would also help the frameworks user base grow.  Again, your book is worth every cent, and I highly recommend everyone get it, but not everyone is willing to (or can) shell out $60 for a book on every framework and technology they are trying out or considering for use.

A second reason to provide quality docs is it reflects well on the project.  I investigated Hibernate and Object Bridge.  Eventually I decided that Hibernate was the way to go (for many many reasons).  But what immediately impressed me with the Hibernate project was the quality of its documentation.  I immediately felt that the project was going to be high in quality because the time, effort and quality of the (free) documentation was very high.  

Also consider that there are many other frameworks around on the net, all of them just a click away.  Sometimes you only have a few precious seconds to impress a potential user before they click onto the next project.  Other frameworks like Struts have an abundance of free documentation and tutorials as articles on a variety of websites.  Plus Struts has a variety of books available too.  These are even more reasons to create high quality documentation for spring in addition to your existing book.

Just my opinion.

Later
Rob

> 
> From: "Rod Johnson" <rod...@in...>
> Date: 2003/08/28 Thu PM 03:34:50 EDT
> To: "Lars Fischer" <lar...@gm...>, 
>         <spr...@li...>
> Subject: Re: [Springframework-developer] Thanks to all the Spring developers
> 
> Lars,
> 
> Thanks for your kind words.
> 
> Regarding the learning curve, any suggestions on what we can do to make
> Spring easier to learn are welcome. I don't think Spring is inherently
> complex, although it does do a lot. But I do appreciate that getting to
> grips with it--especially in combination with other products such as
> Hibernate--may be a challenge, and I want to try to change that.
> 
> Regards,
> Rod
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lars Fischer" <lar...@gm...>
> To: <spr...@li...>
> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 8:12 PM
> Subject: [Springframework-developer] Thanks to all the Spring developers
> 
> 
> > This is a message to all Spring developers and potential users of Spring.
> >
> > This week I've managed to get a first prototype with Spring and Hibernate
> > (two completely new technologies for me) working.  The biggest problem
> > was to get the configuration working (and a 'little' WebLogic problem).
> >
> > Spring has a high learning curve at the beginning because it's a full
> > featured
> > framework for nearly all your needs.
> >
> > If you are willing to invest some time and get things working you will
> > understand
> > more and more what it's all about.
> >
> > Spring can help you to get rid of all these annoying problems with EJBs
> and
> > the related patterns only used to avoid performance problems. And despite
> > the
> > fact that the learning curve maybe high, you just have to learn ONE
> > framework.
> >
> > If you want to keep existing technologies Spring is fine too (just use
> > the needed parts).
> >
> > As a result of my experriences I can highly recommend the use of the
> Spring
> > framework, for me this is an outstanding peace of software with
> > outstanding developers.
> >
> > In the past year I've developed a larger application with EJBs. It's
> working
> > very well (emtremely fast, scalable and stable).  Today I'd use Spring
> which
> > is
> > much more elegant and makes you independant of the application server
> > vendor.
> >
> > If someone reading this is in the situation of deciding whether to use
> > Spring or
> > not, my recommandation is to give it a try and you won't be disappointed !
> >
> > My thanks go to all Spring developers for providing such a great framework
> !
> >
> > Regards
> > Lars
> >
> >
> >
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> 
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