Aspect oriented programming AOP is just one element that Spring supports. To put it to complete basics, Spring is nothing different then EJB except its a lot easier to use. Its an MVC framework for web applications, or atleast thats what it is used for the most. And yes it is a very advanced framework to work with. Use Spring MVC, Maven, and Eclipse (obviously) for rapid web development. For example, if you add some dependencies to pom.xml using maven, this will automatically fetch all the dependencies from the web and add to your project in a standardized structure while you are focusing on the business logic.
Eg. Lets say you want to integrate Facebook or Twitter in your project... well using Spring it gets easy... Just use Spring Social by injecting MAVEN ARTIFACTS into your project pom.xml. (
http://www.springsource.org/spring-social)
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.social</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-social-core</artifactId>
<version>1.0.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
and spring/maven will handle the rest.
In this book you would be able to see how you can simply create a relational database structure, launch it on localhost, and with 1 click Spring will automatically create all DAO's for you while you are simply working on the business logic. I think its pretty awesome.
One of the BIGGEST THINGS to remember about spring is that it is EXTREMELY STANDARDIZED!
If you would like me to create some video TUTS please let me know I would be glad to!
I am not TOO good at writing, so I hope I did my best to explain.
