Spring in context

Thank you for your book. I haven't read it yet.

Does your book offer any discussion of Spring's basic value proposition? In other words, does it situate Spring in the Java ecosystem, and compare it with other technologies that solve similar problems? I have read enough to feel that I have a good understanding of DI and a basic understanding of AOP, but I still don't get what is meant by "Spring" rather than "Spring MVC" or "Spring Batch" or "Spring Web Flow".

If I were to claim that I know Spring, how would that be different than saying I understand DI and AOP?

Thanks,
Rick

@Rick Goff: Spring would refer to the whole Spring framework, which comprises of several modules such as Spring Core, Spring MVC, etc.

See the diagram in this link to give you an idea: http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.2.x/spring-framework-reference/html/overview.html