What are the benefits of dependency injection containers?

Question

I understand benefits of dependency injection itself. Let\'s take Spring for instance. I also understand benefits of other Spring featureslike AOP, helpers of different kind

Answer 1

This is a bit of a loaded question, but I tend to agree that huge amounts of xml configuration doesn't really amount to much benefit. I like my applications to be as light on dependencies as possible, including the hefty frameworks.

They simplify the code a lot of the times, but they also have an overhead in complexity that makes tracking down problems rather difficult (I have seen such problems first hand, and straight Java I would be a lot more comfortable dealing with).

I guess it depends on style a bit, and what you are comfortable with... do you like to fly your own solution and have the benefit of knowing it inside out, or bank on existing solutions that may prove difficult when the configuration isn't just right? It's all a tradeoff.

However, XML configuration is a bit of a pet peeve of mine... I try to avoid it at all costs.