Publication of 'Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development'

Rod Johnson's book directly challenged the J2EE orthodoxy, introducing concepts like Inversion of Control (IoC) and dependency injection as practical alternatives to heavyweight EJBs.

Significance

This book served as the intellectual blueprint and 'manifesto' for what would become the Spring Framework, articulating the architectural principles that would rescue Java developers from J2EE complexity.