Besides, even your code has a container – the Init class is a container from class Whatever’s perspective (and whatever other classes Init inits). It’s just this container is the most primitive and entirely hard-code, and hence useless.

What’s good about Spring? The short answer is, as far as the core container is concerned, it gives a powerful implementation of the DI Pattern. If we agree that the DI Pattern is good (Bob Lee seems do), then that’s what’s good about Spring. The fundamental flaw in Bob’s blog is that he is proving his point from a wrong angle. What he tries to prove is “there are problems in the way Spring does things”, which is completely different from his subject – “what’s the point of Spring?”

public class Whatever {

public void setDude(Dude dude) {
…
}

…

}

public class Init {

public void init() {
Whatever whatever = new Whatever();
whatever.setDude(new SomeDude());
…
}

…

}

Notice no container?

So back to the original question. What’s good about Spring? You said it has good JavaDocs and convenient implementation classes. But that’s not a very compelling argument. How about giving some meat?