[mtrimpe]

I'm pretty good with Spring and have even given trainings on it and I'd argue that Spring's main problem is that it needs to be seen in the right context: a poor man's DSL for declarative system configuration (it is last 10 years old after all.)

That it creates untestable applications seems like completely nonsensical FUD however since the entire point of Spring is to keep code easily testable. Spring is an almost direct response to the lack of testability of the ServiceLocator anti-pattern.

I'm not saying you can't make untestable code in Spring, but if you do the problem is most likely more with the people than with Spring.

[penland]

I've done a lot of Spring side work and your first paragraph is the best explanation I've ever read for the framework.

I also agree that if you can't test Spring code you are doing something wrong. I get the frustration with having to create test harnesses for some things, and the SpringJ4Unit stuff oftentimes feels a bit too magical, but I've never seen well written Spring code that wasn't easily testable at the both the class and module functionality layer.

[ExpiredLink]

With Spring you can easily test your empty mocked-out shells. Great!