What is Spring Boot?

You can think in Spring Boot like a framework for rapid developing java applications.

When we are developing java spring applications there are some tasks that we have to perform to get our spring project ready to code, that's tasks are:

1. create a project structure (using commons tools like Maven, Gradle o even doing it manually)
2. configure the dependencies that our project need (Maven, Gradle)
3. your application may have Spring MVC, so you need to setup this dependency to enable Spring MVC, also you have to configure to servlet API dependency
• If you add Spring MVC to your project, you should configure a web.xml file or a WebApplicationInitializar where you declare the spring DispatcherServlet
4. add some controller to your application to handle http requests
5. and finally add some web server application like, tomcat, jetty or undertow to run your web application

Spring boot help us to develop web applications configuring those mentioned steps for us automatically, so you can focus on your business logic rather than spending time setting up those configurations.

With spring boot, you can even run your application in standalone thanks that spring boot have a tomcat web application server embedded in it, this facilitates run our application without worry how to where to deploy our app.

Thus, the magic of Spring boot is based on 4 fundamental pillars which we can use in our day to day as developers:

1.    Automatic configuration:

Spring boot can provide automatic configurations which are common for most applications that use Spring Framework

2.    Dependency Initializer:

Spring boot is responsible for choosing the correct dependencies based on the features you want to use in your project

3.    CLI or Command Line Interface:

Although this is an optional functionality, Spring boot offers a command line interface to execute code or make configurations quickly

4.    Actuator:

With this tool we can take a look inside our application and know what is happening within our application (Profiler).

In conclusion, Spring boot makes life easier for us by providing certain configurations automatically, it is a tool that we must consider when creating our projects, Spring boot does not solve everything, there are still many things we must do manually depending on the complexity of our project but I think it is an essential tool in the world of Spring Framework development.

References:

Spring boot in Action (https://www.manning.com/books/spring-boot-in-action )