Correct Interactive Website System Design Concepts / Methods?

Question

Hi all,

I hope this question isn't too open ended, but a nudge in the right direction is all I need!

I am currently building an online accounting system - the idea is that users can register, log in, and then create customers, generate invoices and other documents and eventually print / email those documents out.

I am a Java programmer but unfortunately haven't had too much experience in web projects and their design concepts...

This is what I have got thus far - A Tomcat web server which loads Spring. Spring handles my DAO's and required classes for the business logic. Tomcat serves JSP's containing the pages which make up the website. To make it interactive I have used JavaScript in the pages (jQuery and its AJAX calls) to send and receive JSON data (this is done by posting to a page which calls a handleAction() method in one of my classes).

My question is, am I tackling this project in the right way? Am I using the right tools and methods? I understand there are literally countless ways of tackling any project but I would really love to get feedback with regards to tried and tested methods, general practices etc.

Thanks in advance!

Xandel

Answer 1

Since you are looking for new AJAX methods for the web, you can leverage your Java programming skills with Google Web Toolkit (GWT), it makes the integration between the client and the server sides quite seamless. You can use Java on both the client and the server side. (The GWT Compiler generates JavaScript from Java for the client side)

I recommend you have a look at the GWT Remote Procedure Call (RPC) tutorial to see how easy it is to communicate between the client and the server in an asynchronous way.

It might be a good fit for your project since you are not prone to some of its cons like SEO, as I do not think that an accounting system would care about SEO.

Keywords: Java, Interactive, AJAX Calls.

Answer 2

It seems to me that you're providing a technical solution already, it's hard to comment on the quality of your solution without knowing what your design should do. We don't know anything about the scope of your project.

If you're looking for a fresh method to make web apps, check out the free to download Get Real from 37Signals. For more formal, design-up-front projects, the old military standards (MIL-STD-810) will give you direction too.