Summary
In this chapter, we discovered the magic of Spring Boot and how it not only brings in Spring beans but also backs off in light of user code. We found out how Spring Boot starters make it easy to add various features of the Spring portfolio as well as some third-party libraries with some simple dependencies. We saw how Spring Boot leverages properties files, allowing us to override various settings of autoconfiguration. We also saw that we can even create our own properties. We learned that Spring Boot manages an entire suite of library dependencies, allowing us to delegate everything to the version of Spring Boot. We also saw how to override that on a one-off basis.
In the next chapter, we’ll discover how to apply the concepts from this chapter by building our very first Spring Boot 3 application, starting with the web layer. We’ll craft templates and JSON-based APIs, and even stir in a little JavaScript.