title: What are annotations and how do they actually work for frameworks like Spring?
body: <p>I am new to Spring and now a days I hear a lot about Spring Framework. I have two sets of very specific questions:</p>
  
  <p><strong>Set No. 1:</strong> </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>What are annotations in general ?</p></li>
  <li><p>How does annotations works
  specifically with Spring framework ?</p></li>
  <li><p>Can annotations be used outside
  Spring Framework or are they
  Framework specific ?</p></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>Set No. 2:</strong> </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>What module of Spring Framework is
  widely used in Industry ?</p></li>
  <li><p>I think it is Spring MVC but why it
  is the most used module, if am
  correct or correct me on this ?</p></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I am newbie to Spring and so feel free to edit this questions to make more sense. </p>