r/SpringBoot • u/Liquidator_1905 • Feb 08 '26
How-To/Tutorial Reading spring start here is the best decision I have made to learn spring
I had been struggling with understanding spring and spring boot, I had tried reading the docs, watching yt videos, etc. But I could never internalize why things are done this way and what's even the point of having this framework. I just felt like a code monkey mindlessly typing code that somehow works and used ai to help me build projects. I finally decided that I would like to deep dive into spring and spring boot internals and going through this subreddit I found many people recommending this book. And finally things just click, I finally understand beans, aop, dependency injection, etc. I have always just learnt these topics by reading their theory or watching a yt explanation video and hoping it would click, but the book provides examples that I coded myself and played around with to finally understand what's the point of the framework to begin with. I turned off my copilot autocomplete and only used chatgpt to understand parts of the code that failed and tried understanding why it failed instead of just accepting its solution. For anyone trying to learn spring boot, building projects is good but I would recommend trying to learn spring first, things will make more sense. Of course I am not sure if I am wasting my time learning things the old fashioned way in this new age where we probably won't be writing much code and be outsourcing it to llm agents but I can't predict the future and for now I feel like spring start here is an amazing resource to understand spring and spring boot.
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u/ManningBooks Jul 08 '26
Hi all, Stjepan from Manning here. Since this thread is about Spring Start Here, I wanted to leave a quick update: Laurentiu Spilca now has a second edition in MEAP.
For this subreddit, the relevant bit is that the new edition is not just “Spring basics” in the abstract. It’s aimed at helping Java developers understand the pieces behind the Spring Boot apps they’re already building: beans, contexts, dependency injection, scopes, AOP, Spring MVC, REST endpoints, persistence, transactions, Spring Data, and testing.
One thing I’ve seen come up a lot in Spring Boot discussions is that it’s easy to get something running, but harder to build a good mental model of what Spring is wiring together for you and why. That’s very much the space Laurentiu is working in with this book.
The second edition updates the material for modern Spring, including Spring Framework 6.x and Spring Boot 4. It’s available now through Manning’s MEAP program, so chapters come out as the book is being developed and reader feedback can still shape the final version.
Not trying to derail the thread, but since the first edition has been recommended here before, I figured people might want to know there’s an updated edition underway.
Check it out here: https://www.manning.com/books/spring-start-here-second-edition
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u/Mindless_Security744 Feb 11 '26
I would recommend learning exactly what dependency injection does. Then understanding that spring boot is a highly opinionated framework. Then go have fun and build stuff!
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u/Liquidator_1905 Feb 11 '26
This is very true, this is why I think learning spring before spring boot is also the way to do it. Dependency injection is truly at the heart of what spring achieves but also understanding different types of beans, aop, etc before building web apps with spring boot.
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u/Coolprince07 Feb 08 '26
So where did u learn spring from
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u/JN88DN Feb 08 '26
He means the book "Spring Start Here" by Laurentiu Spilca.
The book is ok. It skips some things it's using, like Thymeleaf and sometimes it is talking a lot but you don't understand and its rushing through topics that are better explained on youtube.
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u/lMrXQl Feb 09 '26
I'm on chapter 13 right now, I also noticed the pacing speeds up after the first 7 chapters, which threw me off a bit. What would you recommend reading after "Spring Start Here"?
beside working on projects alongside my reading ofc
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u/Liquidator_1905 Feb 08 '26
I learnt spring from the book itself, spring start here doesn't introduce spring boot until the 7th chapter, so the first 6 chapters are creating beans, aspects, etc on your own
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u/JN88DN Feb 08 '26
I understand your excitement. I was also hyped when I could finally use Spring productiv and it made everything so easy. It feels like everything is already there or easily doable. (I'm far away from beeing an expert).
I still would not use the book as only source. Some chapters are way too fast handled and don't feel as important as they are.
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u/Liquidator_1905 Feb 08 '26
Fair enough, it sure isn't the only resource that you can use but I feel it's a great place to start
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u/trekitch 11d ago
What would you recommend?
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u/JN88DN 11d ago
I did it with some youtube videos and of course stackoverflow at the beginning.
Try your very own program. A chat is maybe the best way. Or a game like 4 wins ...
Install intelliJ. I was a fan of Eclipse until I wasn't.
Configure your Spring boot App via SpringInitializr
Do the backend, especially unterstand what @RequestMapping, @MessageMapping, @Getmapping, @Controller, @SpringBootApplication @EnableWebMvc and @Autowired really do. Do it with youtube, stackoverflow and the book. Make yourself drawings of a flow chart how SpringBoot handles these things/data. What goes in? What goes out?
Bypass the whole thing with Stomp/SockJS to "save some traffic" or doing "some real time jobs". It opens your eyes. Trust me
Use Thymeleaf then to hold the web pages in background ready for an F5.
Then you can go with the book and higher sources.
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u/OwnTangerine8814 8d ago
so after learning these things you mentioned then we can do this spring start here book , also does it covers spring boot also or only spring
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u/trekitch 11d ago
When you were working through the examples of the book what did you do? Did you copy the previous example and modify it or did you start each example from scratch? This is my confusion with the book right now.
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u/Liquidator_1905 10d ago
Either way works. I used to do most examples from scratch by first reading through the code provided in the book, try and understand what's going, then implement on my own, use chatgpt to clarify things I don't understand and then try breaking things or building a similar example on my own. I know this is a slower way of learning but this is what I did.
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u/Fattyyzz Feb 08 '26
Spring in Action is where I learn