ASP.NET => Spring Web Flow: How do I get up to speed fast?

Question

I'm a long-time web developer who's been focusing on ASP.NET/C# for the past 5 years. For my final Masters in Software Engineering project, my team is working with a local company to build them an app using Spring Web Flow (as that's their current tech stack).

I don't know the first thing about building web sites with Java. In fact the last Java dev I did was in the mid-90's when I wrote a calculator applet (back when everyone thought applets would take over the world :-). I know there are things called Servlets, and servlet containers, but I've lived in blissful ignorance about them until now. On the other hand I consider myself a web application expert (not just from ASP.NET, but from classic ASP and Perl before that) and have some experience with the ASP.NET MVC framework as well as Ruby on Rails so I expect to see some similarities with the MVC implementation. But after looking at the myriad xml configuration files last night I had to dig up my old baby blankie and suck my thumb for a bit.

So, Java masters... how would you go about getting a competent developer from a different tech background up to speed on the world of Java web development? What sites have the best tutorials? What books can help? Keep in mind that I have one month before we start our first code sprint, but there should be time for me to do some good late night reading.

Answer 1

I don't do Spring, so my answer will be restricted to JSF/JSP/Servlets.

Before doing JSF, I recommend to learn JSP/Servlet first, because that's basically where JSF is built on. You could kickoff with chapters 1-8 of the part II of the heavy Sun Java EE tutorial. Alternatively you could play with the JSP/Servlet tutorials and examples available at Coreservlets.com. If you prefer books, I would recommend the Head First Servlets & JSP.

Next is JSF, the most comprehensive reading material is the JSF specification itself (pick the Evaluation one if you intend to build JSF apps rather than implementing the whole spec). Then you could kickoff with chapters 9-15 of the part II of the aforementioned Sun Java EE tutorial (if you now still have the motivation to read the boring literature). Alternatively you could continue with the JSF tutorials and examples Coreservlets.com. As a book, you could consider JSF 2.0: The Complete Reference, co-authored by the JSF specification lead.

If you're going to use JSF on Facelets instead of JSP (which I do recommend), then there's the excellent Facelets Developer Documentation to getting started.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I'd recommend SpringMVC step-by-step as a single tutorial.

Or if you prefer reference manuals:

1. General intro to dependency injection: spring reference documentation sections 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, this should cover basic stuff so that you have some idea what those XMLs are all about.
2. Skim Spring MVC documentation for a basic overview of the MVC concept used.
3. Skim Spring web flow documentation to get a feel what web flow is used for

Finally, of course:

1. Get someone from the local company to give you an introduction on the architecture of their specific application, so you get an understanding of what is being done in your specific case.
2. Google class names found in your XMLs to get a better understanding what functionality these classes provide.