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I am new to Java web development (but not new to Java/OOPs). I am looking forward to developing web applications using Java after mastering it. Please let me know what are the things I should start learning to develop web applications using a database in backend ?

thanks

Edit: Are EJBs also required for Web Application development in java?

Rajat Gupta
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    possible duplicate of [Java web development, what skills do I need?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1958808/java-web-development-what-skills-do-i-need) – BalusC Jan 19 '11 at 20:57
  • Also may be you should ask this on programmar.stackexchange.com. – CoolBeans Jan 19 '11 at 21:08
  • @BalusC: True, but technologies change with years, answers on old topics not. – Rajat Gupta Jan 19 '11 at 21:10
  • It hasn't been changed last year. The answer was written when Java EE 6 was out. Java EE 7 is still far away. – BalusC Jan 19 '11 at 21:26

8 Answers8

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For database connectivity, you need to understand how JDBC works as a principle, and then consider learning a framework like Hibernate that is built on top of it (and lets you avoid writing SQL).

For the front-end, you need to pick a serving engine and toolkit. do you want to write your own HTML? Or perhaps you want to use something like GWT to create rich UIs? There are a lot of web front-end frameworks.

Uri
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The question is what kind of application you are trying to build.

I've recently found a promising new approach for java web app development.

Play! framework

It is a easy to learn, complete and fast web application framework which is ideal for beginners. It is worth to take a look on it.

Johann Sonntagbauer
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You First Need To Learn Basic Of Html then 

  Servlet and Jsp

servelet you use for controller and jsp for view

servlet is core part of java web development if you understand servlet deeply then you can stand another java web framwork and jsp easily

and jsp is very easy then servlet but servlet is very core part of web development in java

NAYAN RAMI
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  • do I also need to understand about EJBs ? and is the Java EE solely for web applications/ websites development or very small part of Java EE is used for web? – Rajat Gupta Jan 20 '11 at 11:07
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As in everything it depends. I would certainly pick up a dependency injector knowledge (Spring, Guice). A persistence framework if you need one (JDBC, JPA, Hibernate, ...). These are all underpinnings of the web application services.

For client side items, HTML, CSS, and javascript are key. Anything you can do with these should be recreateable in any java web framework you use.

For a web framework, I have been exceptionally happy with Wicket, especially coming from service layer development. Although, I have heard good things about Tapestry, GWT, and Spring MVC. Struts2 is certainly a viable option although antiquated compared to other maturing frameworks. Then again a lot of this depends on what you need.

Matt
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You would probably want to choose a web application framework such as Tapestry, Struts, Google Web Toolkit (GWT) or Java Server Faces, but even before doing that, I would learn about JavaServerPages/Servlets/Tag Libraries so that you have a good foundation for learning the more complicated frameworks. You might even find that Java Server Pages is enough to satisfy your needs (and for me, they often are)!

As the another commenter mentioned, JDBC (possibly using Hibernate) is important to understand for data persistence. Spring is also becoming very popular (and a skill desired by employers) for managing objects behind-the-scenes, particularly in web applications.

Netbeans and Eclipse are both well-suited to writing web applications and for testing them as you write the code.

But if this sounds complicated, just start with Java Server Pages and Servlets and go from there!

jk.
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I suggest you start developing without any framework. Start with Core Servlets and JSP. A bit of HTML, CSS and JavaScript will be needed.
Following is the list of open source stuff you will need

Server - Apache Tomcat 5.0 + (Preferred)

API - J2EE API (Mainly Servlets and JSP. Also some JDBC.)

Web Technologies - HTML, CSS, JavaScript (Ajax will be fun if you could learn, it's easy)

Browser - Internet Explorer 7+, Chrome, Firefox etc.

Development Environment - Eclipse SDK for Java EE (You will get an integrated Tomcat with this)

Design Pattern - Try using MVC.

This should be good enough to get you going.

Arjan Tijms
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Sid
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A great website to get you reasonably quickly up and running is: www.coreservlets.com

udeleng
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If you undestand the basics of Java and OOP, you are way ahead. My view on the available tools and frameworks is that they drive you towards developing cookie cutter software, and it is better to be able to design your own objects. Most of the stuff you need are already assimilated in the JDK standard, if it is important for a starter. If it is not important, why would you want to spend time learning those things?

To start with, get the following working: (1) Apache server (2) A tomcat servlet engine on its default port (3) Database engine on its default port

Secondary stage: (4) Generate simple HTML through tomcat, view it on a few browsers (5) Establish servlet-DB communication mechanism (6) Put DB query results on the HTML that your servlet is generating

Towards final set up: (7) Design/test the concurrency/threading and business logic in your servlet (8) Design the database tables/schemas required for your apps (9) Set up connectors between apache and tomcat (10) Decide on the GUI for your application. For higher security needs, use applets and learn applet-servlet communication using encrypted objects

That ought to keep anyone busy for a few months. Regards, - M.S.

Manidip Sengupta
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