Spring 3.0.1 - first maintenance release

After two months work, the Spring developers have released Spring 3.0.1, the first maintenance release of the Java application framework. Over 170 issues have been addressed in 3.0.1 and Tiles 2.2 and Hibernate 3.5 are now supported, although developers can continue using earlier versions as the support has been added to track the developments in those libraries. A new packaged version of Spring is available which includes an integrated Ivy repository, preloaded with common third-party jar files, for developers who do not want to configure Maven or Ivy themselves. The new version is in addition to the existing Spring core distributions.

Other enhancements include improved robustness ApplicationListener detection, serialisable Pointcut-based, EntityManager and @Transational proxies, and the ability to use varargs with Spring's JDBCTemplate. Described by the developers as a "bonus", a <spring:eval> tag has been added to Spring's JSP tag library. This allows a Spring EL expression to be evaluated and embedded in a JSP page. The Spring developers say that Spring users should consider upgrading to Spring 3.0.1 and should watch out for up-to-date sample applications which demonstrate the new web functionality. Spring 3.0.1 is available to download now.

(djwm)