[InclinedPlane]

Seriously. Using even a relatively crummy PHP framework like CodeIgniter feels like heaven compared to the burdensomeness and complexity of spring/hibernate. Need a new controller, a few new models, and a couple new views? You can get that done in a snap in any reasonable MVC framework but with spring you'll be pulling teeth and it'll feel like a good day's work if you can get the skeleton working.

[tunesmith]

It really depends on the size of the project. Having used CodeIgniter for a few projects, and Spring extensively for 2-3 years, there were projects where I really appreciated CodeIgniter - basically self-contained CRUD apps with a bit of originality layered on top - but other times where the CI approach would have led to a lot of pain, as in multi-layered applications that relied on legacy integrations.

I don't think it's unreasonable to prefer the simpler projects that the smaller frameworks are a good fit for, of course! Sometimes though the project is big enough that something like Spring is going to save you time and headaches in the medium and long run.

[MoosePlissken]

Are you using an especially old version of Spring? I work with Spring MVC on a pretty regular basis and I've never had that much trouble with defining a new controller/model/view.

Controller: Add an @Controller annotation and some @RequestMappings and you're done.

Model: Usually these have no Spring dependency at all, though there are annotations you could put on some of the fields for various tasks if you'd like.

View: Also mostly unrelated to Spring. Write a Thymeleaf template or JSP and return the name of it from the appropriate controller method.