Support non-Boot client Spring applications about spring-cloud-config

[dsyer]

In some ways Spring Boot is just a convention-over-configuration layer on top of Spring 4, so I'm not sure, but I expect you can use most of Spring Cloud without taking advantage of it. I wouldn't be surprised if you had to have Spring Boot at least on the classpath for some features to work, but you don't have to use auto-configuration for anything if you don't want to. If you give it a try and figure out the gaps we can at least document how to do it.

I don't really subscribe to your thesis that Spring Boot is not a good tool for building "enterprise-grade applications", but that's another discussion. If you want to get religious about it, write a blog or something.

[spencerwi]

Leaving aside your snide comments about "[getting] religious about it", is it accurate then to say that as a Spring developer, your position is that:

1.) Some parts of this Spring feature may or may not work with the core Spring framework, who knows? ("I expect you can use most of Spring Cloud...I wouldn't be surprised if you had to have Spring Boot at least on the classpath for some features...")

2.) If this Spring feature does by happy accident turn out to work with the core Spring framework is the responsibility of users to provide documentation, not of the Spring team ("If you give it a try and figure out the gaps, we can at least document how to do it")

Just looking to get the most complete picture about Spring Cloud Config's viability for anyone with an existing Spring application.

[dsyer]

Spring Cloud is a) new and b) an open source project with a standard github process for contributions. If something doesn't work for you, making a contribution is easy and will be much more effective than just whingeing. That's all I meant.

Spring Cloud is also c) a modern approach that self conciously builds on Spring Boot. So far that has suited most of the people who use it. We are open to suggestion of you want to change it or just clarify things, but please don't try and bully anyone to get what you want.

[spencerwi]

Fair enough. I suppose I'd wrapped up in this question an attempt to find out if the Spring team considered Boot to be "The Only Way Forward®", which is not necessarily fair to ask in an issue on this particular repo (though you did provide an answer on that front). I fully understand the need to sometimes deprecate what's old and intentionally build to what's considered the "modern approach."

It would be nice for the position that non-Boot Spring applications are considered legacy to be made more clear somewhere, but I'm clearly not the person to suggest how best to communicate that, given my position on Boot.

[piefel]

A pity. Really. Not being able to integrate this into existing projects is a major hindrance.

[dsyer]

So did you try something that didn't work?

[piefel]

Actually, no. Without guidance, I don’t know how to start. The documentation mentions only Spring Boot annotations, and I have no clue how to do it without Spring Boot.

Alternatively, I could convert the projects to Spring Boot, but don’t know how to do that either. Our projects all use a different bootstrapping process (some use Dropwizard, some are legacy) and only later start up the Spring context.

[K-RAD]

Guess there's no update on this issue. I'm in the exact same situation.