I need to learn fairly quickly the following Java related technologies:
XML(JAXP, JAXB)
Web Services (JAX-WS, JAX-RPC)
Web (Servlet, JSP, JSF)
JDBC, JPA, Hibernate, Spring Framework including Spring AOP
What is the best order for learning?
That's a pretty tall order.
I'd recommend starting small with a personal project. Start on something that you feel passionate about and feel like you could stick with for a while. Note, that this could actually be the hardest part.
You're probably better of making a simple web app and growing it into something that offers services etc...
Without context and practice, I don't think just learning X, Y, then Z in any particular order will do you any good.
Start with servets, JSPs using JSTL, and JDBC. You can go a long way just with those, and they're the basis for all the others.
Start with Spring. Work through Spring in Action, Third Edition by Craig Walls. It gives you a good intro to Spring and touches all the other technologies you mentioned, although more about how to integrate them with Spring. But you get the ideas. Then dive into the specific topics as needed, ideally by working on a project. And expect it to take some time. Worked for me.
Related
Does anyone know if there is any equivalent to Microsoft's ASP.NET Model View Control Framework with Visual Studio/C# but for Eclipse with Java?
Or put it another way one could build a website in C# using MS Visual Studio with ASP.NET MVC, is there anything similar for Java using the Eclipse IDE?
I've built up good knowledge with Java and the Eclipse IDE creating some Android Apps that I'd like to leverage, now I need to turn my attention to web apps and I'd like to stick with Java and the Eclipse IDE. Cheers!
There are a bunch. I'd check out Play!
but there are also: Apache Wicket, Spring MVC and some others.
There is also a version of Play! for Scala which is a bonus if you intend on moving up from Java to Scala one day.
There is also a similar question with a more detailed answer here:
Choosing a Java Web Framework now?
Spring MVC is worth a look. Spring goes way beyond "just" MVC, with APIS for DB, JMS, and loads more, which may be a little offputting if you're just keen to get to grips with an MVC platform, but it's arguably worth it.
http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/html/mvc.html
http://static.springsource.org/docs/Spring-MVC-step-by-step/
Tapestry or Wicket is worth trying.
Yes, there are a lot of them. Your problem is that there are too many, actually. Narrowing down the list can be a challenge. Everybody has their favorites (mine is Apache Tapestry, because it's actually fun to use, and very powerful).
My recommendation is to pick 3 or 4 (I'd go with Tapestry, GWT, Spring MVC and Wicket), and then spend a couple days working through the introductory tutorial that each of them offers. You'll soon know which one feels right to you, and you'll be basing your decision on your own experience rather than the strongly-worded opinions of strangers.
I have just started learning java and i have about 8 months time. My main aim is to build web application using java. But as there are many java technologies/frameworks available i am conufused how should i go
IDE i am using is eclipse
The path which i am thinking is below
1)Learn Core Java
2)Project: Build Java Invoicing System with JDBC or mysql to test java knowledge
3)Learn Servlets / JSP to
4)Build small site like simple logon/memberarea/catalogue using servlets/jsp
Now guys I really don't know where the following things stand in my path and which things they will help
1)Java EE
2)Spring or spring MVC, what's the difference?
3)Hibernate
4)Wicket
5)Struts
I really don't know how should i learn those and which things to choose from.
what should be my final project which can be build using those because if i see from my current stage even website can be build using servlets/jsp. then why do i need those other technologies
Can anyone give an example of a project which can be build using new technologies and not using jsp/servlet, so that I can get an idea why we need those?
Lot's of stuff to learn in here so I would take it a bit at a time. I'm going to assume you are relatively comfortable with the Java language and core APIs.
First learn about JDBC and databases. Get a basic functional JDBC example app working (not visual just some a vanilla Java app) that does read/insert/update/delete of some records in a table. This will give you the basis for building whatever app you choose. Almost all interesting applications involve some sort of persistence/database.
Learn the main JDBC APIs (Connection, PreparedStatement, ResultSet) and write some code that uses these to get comfortable.
Learn about how transactions work in databases if you aren't familiar already and how JDBC uses them (Connection.commit and rollback)
Next you could look into the spring framework. This has a several useful features that come in handy when building these applications. The main ones to get to know the dependency injection functionality and the JDBC libraries it has. The DI stuff is a bit of a "duh"? if you haven't used it before but it is very useful/powerful especially for medium size + apps. The JDBC libraries help with the cruft of dealing with the raw JDBC APIs and make your code less error-prone.
Once you've got some basic JDBC and Spring stuff worked out you can then start bringing in a web framework.
This is more difficult because there are so many. In the interest of getting something up and running quickly I would probably go with Wicket. It runs inside a servlet container like Jetty, easy to get up and running with a basic web page or two and relatively easy to evolve of the project over time without going down too many blind alleys. I've found that frameworks like JSF (the Java EE default web/view framework) takes a lot of up front time investment to get going on. Most of these frameworks, including Wicket, can leverage the spring stuff you've got above.
Avoid JSP, it's unpleasent technology and outdated by virtually everything else.
To answer some of your other points.
Hibernate is a tool for mapping an object model to a relational model. In it's most basic form you define a Java class for each DB table with the class having one Java property (variable+getter+setter) for each DB column. You can also add references from one class to another to model database relations. It is good but it takes a bit of getting used to.
Spring I've explained partly above. Spring is much bigger than just DI and some JDBC libraries. It also has transaction management libs and bunch of other stuff. Spring MVC is a web framework which lives under the spring umbrella and makes use of a lot of the spring libraries internally. I've never used it so can't offer an opinion on it.
Java EE is an umbrella term for a large set of "enterprise" specifications/libraries. JSF is a web view framework that is part of Java EE.
That's my very high level advice. To summarise I would learn basic DB/JDBC then some spring stuff and then start building a basic web app using what you've learned already.
Hope that helps. There's plenty of info out there on the web on all these topics and you can always ask questions here on more specific parts if you need help. Good luck and enjoy!
EDIT (to address comment):
All of the above is my recommendation/opinion on how to approach learning Java web development.
In summary
Learning JDBC/transactions/databases is a must
Spring is optional but I strongly recommend. Spring is a big library but you can pick and choose the bits you like/need.
Web frameworks the choice is really yours. From what I have tried (JSF/JSP/Wicket) Wicket is the easiest to get going with so you don't spend too much time frustrated with the getting the initial setup. JSP is awful, it's very easy to make a mess with it. JSF is powerful but heavy and probably more suited to very enterprisy projects than a first web app.
Hibernate is optional but can make life easier simply because you can work with Java objects when you do DB queries/updates rather than writing tedious insert/update statements. Hibernate isn't the only tool like this but it's the one I've used most and does the job well. Just don't go too overboard with the "clever" hibernate features initially.
You could easily use Spring MVC instead of Wicket. That may be a perfectly good choice, I've not used Spring MVC myself so can't comment. I'm sure it will integrate well with spring stuff tho so that would certainly be a positive factor.
Do some more research if you're not sure, there's no end of people happy to give their opinion! But really you just have to dive in and try something.
You are correct. If all your applications are served by servlets, JSPs, and JDBC, then maybe you don't need to learn anything else.
I commend you for learning the fundamentals first before diving into a thicket of frameworks that you don't understand. That's a good thing.
But if you reach the point where you have those down cold, maybe looking at these other technologies can help you improve your game.
1)Java EE
You are learning (part) of Java EE when you use servlets, JSPs, and JDBC. They're a subset of the full Java EE machinery - EJBs, JMS, JNDI, etc.
2)Spring or spring MVC whats
difference
Spring is an alternative framework developed by Rod Johnson and Springsource, now part of VMWare, that is based on dependency injection, aspect-oriented programming, and framework modules. Spring web MVC is one module in the Spring framework, based on servlets, that acts as the front end for web applications.
3)Hibernate
An object-relational mapping technology (ORM), built on top of SQL and JDBC, that lets you map objects to tables. It has its own object-based query language.
4)Wicket
Another web MVC alternative to Spring MVC, Struts, JSF, etc.
5)Struts
The first web MVC framework. It's gone through versions 1.0 and 2.0, and has now been supplated by Java Server Faces. It's still used, though. Like all other web MVC frameworks in Java, it's based on servlets and JSPs.
From a Java perspective it might be best to start looking at Java EE. All the others you mentioned are alternative technologies, which might be useful to you if you decide that what the standard framework offers isn't your cup of tea. But for that to decide, it's never a bad idea to at least know what the standard framework is about.
Truth be told, before 2006 the standard framework had a bad reputation and some of the sentiments that form the basis for recommending alternative technologies are still based on that. Starting with version 5, Java EE got dramatically better. The latest version, Java EE 6 is arguably one of the best Java frameworks that's out there. Of course, the best is a highly subjective term and naturally it won't be the best one for each and every person out there.
At any length, Java EE 6 is a very complete framework that allows a large range of application to be written without depending on any additional library. Being the standard framework, most other frameworks at least depend on some parts of it.
Most typically EJB, CDI and JSF are replaced by alternative technologies. E.g. the core Spring container replaces EJB and CDI and Spring MVC replaces JSF. A full Spring stack typically still uses JPA, JTA, JMS and Servlet from Java EE. Wicket on its turn only replaces JSF, or when used with a Spring stack replaces Spring MVC.
Hibernate is a special case. It doesn't replace anything from Java EE, but is instead often used as an implementation for one of the key APIs of Java EE: JPA. The original creator of Hibernate, Gavin King, is one of the prime supporters of the Java EE framework and is in fact the spec lead of one of the most important parts of modern Java EE: CDI.
Wicket by itself is a very nice web framework, but in practice it isn't used as often as JSF. I won't go into the discussion whether Wicket or JSF is 'better' (this is mostly a religious battle anyway), but due to the popularity of JSF there are simply more people experienced with it and there is a large community offering many things for JSF like component libraries and extensions.
Struts has historically been completely replaced by JSF. The original creator or Struts, Craig Mcclanahan, was the one who started JSF as the successor of Struts. Nevertheless, Struts was once the absolute de-facto standard for web frameworks in Java. It's not often advised to be used for new projects, but till this day it's still used in a huge number of existing applications. So even though it's not really 'hot' to learn Struts anno 2011 knowledge of it may still be very practical for when you have to maintain existing applications.
ps
See this answer for a general description about Java EE: Frameworks for Layering reusable Architectures
I'm sure that nobody seriously can tell you the best way, because this would mean that (s)he would have tried all. Why do you want to learn a Java web application framework? Just to learn it to be prepared for the (next) job? In that case it is likely that you've learned the wrong one.
The next question would be what you want to do with the web application framework. Do you want to make a website a little bit active, e.g. make each page look similar (corporate design), auto-generate menus from an internal structure, or do you want to write a real web application, e.g. with database access.
I'd first define the goal what you want to achieve. IMHO a good way to motivate you to make it right is to take a small project which helps you to solve a small problem.
Then I would start with Java Server Pages (JSP) and servlets to understand the basic concepts. Then you can try to do the same with a few well-known web application frameworks, e.g. Wicket.
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Possible Duplicate:
Choosing a Java Web Framework now?
Hi All,
I'm thinking about which framework to choose for web applications. There are so many web frameworks and I'm afraid of trying all of them - it could be time consuming and I wouldn't have to found much with simple examples.
I have experience with jsp, jsf1.2, struts1. I can say I don't like pure jsp with tags. Struts1 again is quite similar to jsp in my view but a bit better. I do like jsf, I find it quite simple to use :), but I'm worried about performance. We used icefaces and lack of get support was really bad.
I know there exist other frameworks, like spring mvc - could be good? . grails, ruby on rails, wicket, gwt, struts2,jsf2
What I need, I'd like to have a versatile framework which doesn't restrict me and at the same time it's no problem to create features e.g: ajax.A bit easier to develop in but still fast I would be scared to sacrifice performance for ease of development.
I do not have any production experience with other frameworks I named.Do you have? Could you share it please? What would you use?
Thank you very much.
Any experience appreciated.
Here's my take:
I have experience with jsp, jsf1.2, struts1.
You have my condolences.
I can say I don't like pure jsp with
tags. Struts1 again is quite similar
to jsp in my view but a bit better. I
do like jsf, I find it quite simple to
use :), but I'm worried about
performance. We used icefaces and lack
of get support was really bad.
I don't care for JSF or Struts.x at all.
I know there exist other frameworks,
like spring mvc - could be good?
Yes, Spring is very good. It's much, much more than a web MVC framework as well. It's performant, it's got traction, it's got the financial backing of VMWare. I think it's the clear winner in the Java EE space.
. grails.
Grails is built on Spring and Hibernate.
, ruby on rails,
Not Java.
wicket,
Could be good. I have no experience with it.
gwt
Write Swing, turn it into JavaScript. I have no experience with it.
I think Spring is a clear winner. It's been on top for five years and hasn't lost a thing.
For a presentation layer framework: There is plenty to choose and I cannot really recommend one over another as I have only worked with one or two.
For a general framework to build your application, I recommend Spring. It is well known, support is ok and it is usually very easy to hook whatever specific-purpose framework you may want to use.
http://www.jodd.org/ seems to be a very good, fast and open framework that includes many facets needed for webapplications.
For the presentation layer, GWT with Uibinder could really match your demands :
you build your pages with xml
(pretty much like jsf/facelets)
it's designed to be fast
it's a google product, with a really
big community
it's really well integrated with
eclipse and easy to start using it
Sorry for asking this question, but I searched all Java-related questions, but I got more confused. I am still not clear what should I start with.
My main thing is building websites in Java, because someone told me that there are some machine learning or AI libraries available in Java which I can use in Java. So I decided to use that as it can reduce my work.
Now I don't know Java at all. Some people say the following are used to build websites, like:
Servlets alone can build a website
JSP alone can also build a website
Struts
Spring Framework with Hibernate
Seam
Java EE also for websites
I am confused. Where should I start from? Where does core Java fits in here?
I was thinking of perhaps learning Python as I know I have to learn Python only, not its variations.
So please guide me to one thing which can solve my basic purpose of using ready-made libraries of AI.
If I can do that with JSP then I will start with that.
But if I need to learn all of them, then it’s better if can start learning Python.
I have five months to finish the website.
I really don't know why there are many branches of Java for doing one thing.
To correct some misconceptions of yours:
servlets and JSP are Java EE
Seam and Struts can be used together with Hibernate as well
Spring MVC is a web framework. Spring as a dependency injection framework can be used together with any other framework.
there are many more options, like JSF, Tapestry, Click, Play, etc.
It depends on what will the site will be doing, but you can choose any.
Experience has shown that building complex HTML forms (especially validation) and Ajax functionality is hard to get right. You will most likely appreciate having a library to assist you with that. The same thing with database access.
Everything builds on servlets. Learn those in order to understand the libraries you will use.
I would suggest learning JavaServer Faces (JSF) with facelets. The easiest, while being powerful, is JSF 2 in Java EE 6. The easiest way to get started is to use NetBeans with GlassFish 3.
For static web pages, HTML alone is enough and if you want to make it more user-friendly and interactive, use JavaScript.
There are lot of frameworks you can use directly in JavaScript, like jQuery. Now if you want to make some more functionalities, like database interaction, then you will need either PHP, Java (JSP and Servlets) or .NET (there exist some more, but I’m aware of three only). Each of them have their library to interact with database.
Since you are interested in Java, go through Servlets, HTML, JavaScript, and JSP. Once this is done, you can look into JSF and EJB beans. So if you have knowledge of Java this will not take too much time, because the syntax is the same; the only difference is the concept.
So you will have a frontend (HTML, JS, and JSP) which will interact with the backend (Servlets and the database) which will be deployed in a Web container. To deploy, you can use an one of the available application servers, like Apache Tomcat, GlassFish, or WebSphere. To develop your application, you can use Eclipse as the IDE, which is one of the best IDEs I have used.
So decide your architecture and design, break it into components and start writing small applications first. Once you are experienced in small application, start writing an application where there are more things you have to care of, like load on database, availability, security, etc. For that, you can refer a very famous question on Stack Overflow, What technical details should a programmer of a web application consider before making the site public?.
The closest to core Java is servlets. No extra syntax, very minimal library, but no included functionality.
For building websites, the main thing is HTML and HTTP.
All technologies (including Enterprise Java or Server side Java) do the same—to understand an HTTP request and respond back with HTML. All that you mentioned do the same thing with a different level of sophistication.
Start with Wikipedia.org to know what technologies do what. If you are completely new to Java, go through the Sun tutorials, do sample programs, and get comfortable with Java packages, JVM and classes. (This might take a week or two).
To build websites using Java, you'll have to learn Java Servlets—everything else (JSP, Struts, JSF, and Spring(!)) are built on it. Get Head First books on Java and Servlets; they will be useful.
You can always build the page in Ruby or something that will give you a website very fast. For the AI stuff that analyzes the bought items for the recommendations, use something unrelated to the page that only takes the database to work with.
I would not mix the whole web page stuff with the AI computing. You can do the AI things that will take a long time and maybe should done on a different machine to have your webpage also responsive with C++ or Java in normal applications.
Choosing your front end technique because of later usage is a very dangerous thing. Using the whole Java EE concept and learning it from scratch will take you much longer than have a quick start with your page if you do it in Ruby or PHP.
You can then build the first version of the page and generate a user base. Start working on the AI stuff once you got some data with other technologies.
If your page has performance problems because your technology does not scale, you can always begin switching parts of the stuff out with a faster technology or maybe simply a bigger machine. Get your page running before you build it bulletproof for the thousand users you are expecting.
If you’re trying to build a website from scratch, with no prior knowledge, your best bet is to go with frameworks that provide a complete stack for web development.
If you aren't dead set on Java, you could probably start learning Ruby on Rails, which would be easier to start with (if so, go buy a Ruby on Rails tutorial which goes through all the necessary things for modern web development, from MVC to version control).
For Java, try:
Play Framework is very similar to Ruby on Rails. It will get you started very quickly, and hopefully (if you follow conventions) handle all of your peripheral needs.
Spring Roo is a very-fast-to-work-with framework, but it might get hard to maintain and extend later on.
These two are full web frameworks, that is, they handle database, MVC (presentation layer), configuration setting, etc... (I'll explain shortly). And could even ease your deployment process.
If you're going to go through any other route (using several frameworks together), you are probably not going to finish what you are doing in five months.
To understand why, and to clear some things you wrote in your question, you need to understand that modern web development (and enterprise development as a whole) is comprised of several different technologies:
Presentation: the term web frameworks has been more or less taken to mean frameworks that deal with this side of web development, i.e., how to create a web page (an HTML page). Most of the frameworks offer an MVC like approach (which you can read about elsewhere), and this is what most of the frameworks/technologies you gave sit in—JSP and Struts (which uses JSP) are examples of web frameworks. Servlets is a lower-level API that standardizes how to answer HTTP requests (which JSP and Struts sit on top of).
Persistence: being able to show a webpage doesn't mean squat these days if you can't save data to a database, and that is what the persistence frameworks do (they ease the way you can save data to the database). Hibernate is a persistence framework.
For Java there are also dependency injection (DI), which is what Spring DI is. It's tough to explain DI to people not familiar with the troubles of Java, so I won't try to explain it, but it's a very important part of modern Java development.
apart from these core technologies, there are also many items that you'll need to learn to actually deploy the application (unless your using services like Heroku or Google App Engine, which should simplify things), and troubleshoot it later (understanding how concurrency and HTTP works).
To address the other technologies you brought up:
I've never really touched Seam, so I'm not sure, but it looks like a collection of other frameworks (mainly EJB 3, which itself is a collection of APIs, and JSF).
Spring denotes a popular open source group (the SpringSource group) that provides various technologies, but most likely when you hear about it they refer to two things Spring's dependency injection (DI) and Spring's MVC (which is a web framework).
Java EE is merely a collection of high level APIs which other technologies implement (Hibernate implements JPA which is part of Java EE for instance).
I've been developing in java then I stopped, so now since I have my google app engine account I wanted to start with this again. Also, I love web and I know struts is a good MVC framework.
I've been reading this. Do you think struts can help me to start or should I start with "plain" servlets, and then go to some framework?
I would at least learn the basic servlet lifecycle and API.
As Joel puts it abstractions are leaky and this applies to frameworks--all frameworks not just Web ones--equally well. You will be much better equipped to use a framework, to know why it's good and how it can help you if you understand the underlying technology, the thing it is trying to abstract.
As for Struts, I would steer clear of STruts 1. It's rather ancient now. There's still a lot of code around for it but I wouldn't consider it best practice now, particularly for its (over)use of inheritance. Struts 2 is really a completely different framework based on Webwork.
There are plenty of other MVC frameworks out there. Personally I like Spring MVC as being quite "pure" and lightweight.
I'd definitely start with an MVC framework as opposed to "plain" servlets as you suggest.
While I've used Struts 1.x a lot, I think for a new application you should look at Struts 2, Spring MVC or some other newer framework that leverage new Java features such as annotations.
I completely agree with cletus in the sense that I would start by completely understanding Servlet/JSP first.
After that, I would go to a more modern framework than Struts. To me, JSF or Spring sound like better options than Struts these days.
Struts 1 is now obsolete and Struts 2 doesn't seem to be getting much traction. There are lots of good frameworks out there, and you may want to consider instead: JSF, GWT, or Spring for example.
I suggest you to use Struts 1.x rather than Servlet, because this gives you lot of benefits like
PageNavigatin
Input validation
Extensibility
Modularity
I too agree in that learning fundamentals (Servlet API is a must, jsp/jstl highly recommended) first is the best thing to do. And for many simple things jsp/jstl combo is actually plenty good. But bigger the system, less maintainable such web apps tend to become. This is inverse of using heavy frameworks like JSF.
Beyond ones already suggested, I would recommend checking out Tapestry and Wicket: many developers like them. My experiences with JSF have been bit negative; but it's one of those love-or-hate frameworks, many swear by it, others just swear at it.