title: what's difference between Controller and Handler in Spring MVC?
body: <p>The documentation of Spring MVC sometimes says about "handlers" or "request handlers". For instance, <a href="http://docs.spring.io/autorepo/docs/spring/4.0.4.RELEASE/javadoc-api/org/springframework/web/servlet/handler/SimpleUrlHandlerMapping.html" rel="noreferrer">http://docs.spring.io/autorepo/docs/spring/4.0.4.RELEASE/javadoc-api/org/springframework/web/servlet/handler/SimpleUrlHandlerMapping.html</a> says:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Implementation of the HandlerMapping interface to map from URLs to request handler beans</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>And sometimes it says about controllers. For instance, there is an interface called org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.Controller ( <a href="http://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/2.5.x/api/org/springframework/web/servlet/mvc/Controller.html" rel="noreferrer">http://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/2.5.x/api/org/springframework/web/servlet/mvc/Controller.html</a> ).</p>
  
  <p>My question is: are Controllers and Handlers the same?</p>