J2EE how to start? Am I doing it right?

Question

Ok so lately I've been reading a bit bout J2EE and I'm really hyped up because of it and I'm even thinking about doing it professionally (I'm in my 4th year of university, out of 5, so I need to decide what I want to do I guess). So I was wondering what's the best way to get round to learning it?

I'm getting a Head First JSP/Servlets book next week (huge Head First fan here) and I plan on reading the Sun tutorial simultaneously, as a start. But then what? Should I go with EJB (obviously Head First EJB) or JPA/Hibernate (I was recommended Manning: Java Persistence with Hibernate)?

I know it will depend on the company, but what is the bare minimum an employer would expect from a candidate for a J2EE post?

Answer 1

You can't say EJB or JPA. EJB works tightly with JPA. Take both. This technologies are for implementing "Business Logic". It is a good idea to learn them after or before Servlets and JSP which are technologies for "Representation Logic".

If you have to choose order in which learn them take EJB first. As with it you already can implement business logic while JPA is only a persistence instrument for doing that.

Or even better. Take a book "EJB3 in Action" which covers both technologies simultaneously.

If you claim that you can handle Java EE tasks you should know how to

• deploy on Application Servers
• debug your services
• identify error reasons by looking at the long Application Server stack traces
• configure build description and build using ant/maven
• test web services without specially written client for them

About minimum. I know work on EJB3/JPA project. Before I worked in another company as a C++ developer. And I took Java EE position without any JavaEE experience. So it is really depends on the Company and on your Development skills.

Answer 2

• basic jsp syntax and jstl (jsp standard tag libraries - you don't have to know all of them, just use a few to get familiar with how they work)

• the basic servlet lifecycle

• After you get a the container, I'd build something based on a spring/hibernate tutorial- this seems to be what I've been asked about in every J2EE interview I've been on, EJB's not so much.

Answer 3

Although reading books and learning about the technology is very important, I would suggest you to think of a project (even something that exists) and then try to implement it with JEE as you read books, tutorials etc.. I believe that the best way to "really" learn something is by practicing it.

Answer 4

... get your hands dirty with NetBeans: low ramp up overhead and fast track to get comfy with Suns's core technologies, lot's of NB specific tutorials regarding JEE. Then branch out to different alternative implementations ( Spring, Hibernate, etc )

PS - After building up some familiarity with Sun's way of doing things you'll have a baseline for evaluating things like Spring and Hibernate and the issues they try to solve.