Spring Core Training Review

I’ve just finished a four day Spring Core training course in Wellington, New Zealand. These are my thoughts.

I’d already been a Spring user for roughly 2 years, predominantly using 2.5.6 is a commercial setting, and had always wanted to do the Spring Core course, especially since there are areas of Spring 3 that I don’t use and don’t always get the time to work with when it comes to my day to day tasks.

What I liked about the course:

• The lecturer, who made the notes come to life. I had no idea who would be lecturing, as it turned out Spring sent a highly experienced industry veteran with a PhD in computer science, Dr. Paul Chapman.
• The student pack with notes, lab notes and preprepared SpringSource Tool Suite so we could get stuck into the labs without struggling with environment issues. Awesome.
• The labs, 30 to 45 minutes and they never cut corners, its all about best practices and Spring sticks to its guns all the way.
• The venue, with a view over the whole of Wellington.We had regular breaks with coffee and great cookies.
• The lunch vouchers and chatting to the lecturer and fellow students over lunch.
• The pace, we covered a broad spectrum of topics and roughly 12 labs. At an academic university these 4 days would have been spread over a semester.