SpringSource, formerly known as Interface21, has announced the final release of Spring.NET 1.1, an application framework for the development and deployment of enterprise .NET applications. With roots in the widely used Spring Framework programming model for Java, Spring.NET extends the features of the Spring Framework to the .NET environment.

The development of Spring.NET grew from the realization that many of the core concepts of the Spring Framework, such as Dependency Injection, Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) and consistent data access abstractions, extend beyond the Java platform and have wider applicability across the enterprise development space. By combining the Spring Framework’s architectural concepts and patterns with additional features specific to the .NET domain, this latest version of Spring.NET delivers enhanced portability, consistency and testability to the enterprise .NET development community.

Key features of Spring.NET 1.1 include:

• Inversion of Control container responsible for the configuration of application classes using Dependency Injection
• ASP.NET Framework for Web development supports Dependency Injection for pages, controls, modules and providers. It simplifies Web development by providing bi-directional data binding, localization support, data model and process management, externalized navigation through result mapping, and a UI-agnostic data validation framework.
• Aspect Oriented Programming Framework (AOP) complements object-oriented programming by centralizing common behavior that cuts across inheritance hierarchies and the ability to apply that behavior in a targeted and declarative manner.
• NHibernate 1.0 and 1.2 Integration simplifies use of NHibernate and enables participation in Spring.NET’s declarative transaction management functionality allowing easy mixing of ADO.NET and NHibernate operations within the same transaction.
• ASP.NET AJAX Integration – exporter to expose a plain .NET object (PONO) that doesn't have any attributes or special base classes, as a Web service, configured via dependency injection, 'decorated' by applying AOP, and then exposed to client-side JavaScript.
• NUnit Integration facilitates testing of applications by providing Dependency Injection of test cases. Data access and transaction management features aid with integration testing.