title: Spring project without xml
body: <p>I'm new to Spring.
  The goal is to learn Spring, to use Spring as a production application as it is industry standard. </p>
  
  <p>The requirements of the app:
  Hibernate, Security, MVC, RESTful, DI, etc.
  The other Spring frameworks might be added in future. 
  I'm reading "Spring in Action. Third Edition." by Craig Walls.
  He gave the examples how to use annotations, but anyway .xml is used.
  I'm wonder if I can write the application using only java classes to configure all modules in the application. 
  I found Spring Boot gives ability to develop not using xml files. However I read the article <a href="http://steveperkins.com/use-spring-boot-next-project/" rel="nofollow">http://steveperkins.com/use-spring-boot-next-project/</a> and author said Boot is not ready to be used for production applications.
  As far as I understood Boot hides all config work from me. Also my concern is that in future java-developers who knows Spring won't be able to deal with Spring Boot and I wouldn't find proper engineers for the project.
  Based upon this I have the following questions:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Is it possible to avoid using xml in Spring or better to mix xml files and annotations?</li>
  <li>Is it easy for Spring developers to work with Spring Boot?</li>
  <li>Am I able to learn Spring using Spring Boot?</li>
  <li>Is Spring Boot is mature enough to use it in production?</li>
  </ul>