Anytime anything in the tech world has been around for a while, especially in Software Engineering where new frameworks are created every day (at least it seems that way), the question of whether something “older” is worth learning comes up. The short answer of whether you should bother learning Spring Boot is yes, of course, you should. If you have any experience in Java or want to learn and don’t know where to start, Spring Boot is a perfect place to begin. Or if you’re looking to expand your knowledge within the Java world to prepare yourself for a future job, give it a go!
But Isn’t Java Being Used Less And Less?
There can be an elitist and toxic attitude around Software Engineering which comes from the nature of it being such an opinionated area of expertise. There’s usually always a million ways of achieving something and everyone has their ways of doing it. One of the more common tropes thrown around is that Java is old, no one wants to use it anymore and it’s not trendy. While some of the points may be true, Java is heavily baked in so many enterprises and is still constantly being improved. Yes, it may not be the most fashionable language and new and exciting things will always get a buzz, but steady old Java just keeps ploughing on.
Spring Boot has somewhat revitalised Java, giving people an easy way to build REST API’s and integrate other commonly used things such as Queues, Database support, Caching in an easy and quick way.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet (even this site, we actively encourage you to try things yourself!), on some forums it may seem that Java is dead and nobody wasn’t to use it anymore, but give Spring Boot a try, it may change your perception of the whole thing! If you still don’t agree, drop a comment here and I’ll happily hear your thoughts on why. Software Engineers should always be learning!
Jobs!
Spring Boot is everywhere, even referring to the last section where it may seem that it’s not particularly common, Java as a whole is incredibly widely used in a lot of different sectors so it makes sense that Spring Boot is too. You just have to spend 10 minutes on LinkedIn or any job board and you will see companies hiring Java developers to work on their Spring Boot apps.
In terms of the future job market, I can’t really see any companies splitting away from Spring Boot and rewriting their tech stacks in another language or even framework any time soon. It wouldn’t be worth the cost to the business without any massive justification and as Spring Boot is continually ticking all the boxes, there is no need to make any rash decisions.
Support
As with any language or framework, Software Engineers rely on good old Google to get them through the day when tackling issues (and don’t listen to anyone who says otherwise, they’re lying!). Spring Boot is so widely used that a lot of the problems you will come across have already been solved! No need to spend hours wracking your brain trying to fix something when a simple search will point you in the right direction. As it’s Java too, you are never far from getting support for none Spring Boot issues you may come across that you need assistance with.
It’s Free Quick and Easy To Setup
Fire up Spring Initializr in your browser and you’ll soon see how easy and quick it is to get a project started, it will take no time at all for you to give it a go and make your own mind up about whether you should pursue it any further. Visit https://start.spring.io/, put some values in, download it and import to your IDE and you have a fully working application ready to go! We’ll always recommend you give things a go before you make a decision on the platform you want to use for your project and it really couldn’t be simpler to get going with Spring Boot.
Summary
It’s never easy to decide what to choose when deciding to learn a new framework or language, if you’re completely new to Software Engineering as a whole, your best bet is to pick a language and get used to the core concepts of that language before relying on a framework to advance you or your project. You’ll be much better, in the long run, that way.
Anything past that is easier once you have a solid foundation. Every framework and language has its pros and cons, but you can’t really replace the background knowledge of understanding the logic and processes behind writing code, especially in an “Object-Oriented” language such as Java. If you’re comfortable with Java, or another language, give Spring Boot a go and let us know what you think!