Expert Spring MVC and Web Flow

with the user. Conversations can execute in parallel without intruding on each other, and

when the conversation has finished, all allocated resources are automatically cleaned up.

Implementation Agnostic

Secondly, Spring Web Flow is deliberately abstracted away from the Servlet specification.

The core artifacts within Spring Web Flow are flows, states, actions, and views. As you will

see, there is nothing web-specific about a flow definition; the flow itself could be describing

a set of web pages, a set of windows in a GUI, or even the communication between disparate

systems. At no point within Spring Web Flow are you presented with an HttpServletRequest

or an HttpServletResponse.

Accessible Lexicon

Thirdly, Spring Web Flow enables communication. You will find the core model simple, and

the terminology used is readily accessible to nontechnical people. Tools already exist (like

the Spring IDE Web Flow editor for Eclipse (http://www.springide.org/project)) that make

XML-based flow definitions easily understood, thus bridging the gap between design and

implementation.

Figure 11-2 shows a screenshot of the Spring Web Flow plugin for Eclipse.

Figure 11-2.Spring Web Flow plugin for Eclipse

312 CHAPTER 11 ■INTRODUCTION TO SPRING WEB FLOW