7 Resources that can help you get started with Spring
All resources that one needs to get started with Spring in one place
Introduction
It was not a long time ago when I decided to learn Spring Boot. The first time I saw those annotations, they got me perplexed and made me run away from Spring. Thank god though I somehow managed to get back to learning again. The reason I wanted to learn Spring was that I wanted to do development in Java and Spring is the go-to framework when it comes to Java development. Another reason was that Java and Spring have widespread community support, and the framework has also stood the test of times.
When I was starting, I was not even aware that Spring and Spring Boot are different and that Spring is not just a framework but a whole ecosystem. Here is the official list of all projects under the Spring umbrella “https://spring.io/projects” (This is, in fact, the most fundamental resource of all that I am going to discuss later in this article).
It took me a lot of struggle and effort before I found the resources that I was looking for, and I finally made progress in my learning. The best way to learn any framework, which I am sure everyone will agree is, to build something in that project. So, I worked on projects in Spring Boot, Spring Security, and Spring Data and have also got professional experience of working in the framework.
Fast forward one year, I have become very comfortable with the framework, and I thought of sharing all the resources, that I have helped me learn, to all those who are at the same place I was a year ago.
All of these resources are completely free, opensource, and practical. I am not going to mention all those online courses that we usually buy and never finish.
Following are the seven resources that can be useful to you if you are a beginner to the Spring framework
- Java Brains Youtube: Whenever I have to learn something new, youtube is the first place I search. There are numerous tutorials available on youtube related to Spring, however, the most useful I have found is Java Brains. The guy has one of the best tutorials on Spring Boot, Spring Security, and Microservices. I have not found a better and concise explanation of spring-related topics anywhere else. The tutorials should be enough to get you started.
- Callicoder: If you are looking for production-level code tutorials, then this is the place to go. It has some 40 tutorials just on Spring and covers all aspects of java based development along with Docker and React. If you follow all of his tutorials, I can bet that you are ready to work in java based development environment.
- Baeldung: A great rich content website that has articles on almost every concept of Java and Spring. I found this series very helpful in building REST APIs in Spring. The list is organized from beginner to advanced level concepts.
- Github repositories: If you are looking for some good open source project in Spring, the following list might help you:
These are intermediate to advanced level projects:
https://github.com/sqshq/piggymetrics
https://github.com/spring-petclinic/spring-petclinic-rest
https://github.com/yidongnan/spring-cloud-netflix-example - Javarevisited: Javarevisited has articles on almost every single java concept out there. They also have a publication on Medium if you don’t know already and most of the articles on the publication are Java focussed.
- MkYong.com: Another great resource for you to check out.
- Official site: Of all these resources, there can not be a better resource than the official website. I am mentioning at the last because nobody likes to read the official documentation but trust me this place is the bible of spring.
So, this a compact list of all the resources that have helped me to learn and grow. You can explore these resources at your convenience, but I would advise you to start from top to bottom if you are a complete beginner.
Again, thanks for reading this article. I hope these resources will help you just like they helped me.
Happy learning 😊!
P. S: I am not doing any promotion here, I have genuinely used these resources and they are completely free.
