Recently, I was surprised to get an email from an Java fresher, who asked me to give some suggestions on learning J2EE technologies. Here is what I’ve replied:
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My advice to the Java Freshers:
- Along with plain servlets and JSPs, it’s good to know about a MVC framework (Struts or JSF), Hibernate and Spring. These days Spring is getting more attention as both MVC framework and as data access framework. So, try to master Spring.
- Also, have a good understanding about JUnit and log4j. Most of the enterprise applications use these two.
- And try working with application servers like JBoss or Glassfish, since you will have to use these for your application development/deployment.
- Learn JSTL (in case you didn’t know it before)
- Create an online portfolio – since you are already developing websites, this will not be tough.
- Apart from the server side technologies, try to get a grip on the client side tools also (JavaScript, JQuery, CSS, etc).
- Regarding the companies, Sun would be a better place to get a good exposure in J2EE!! Just kidding!! The experience is depends on the kind of project that you get!! Even if you don’t get challenging projects, you are always welcomed to take up a open source Java project!
All the best.
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I would suggest learning Java EE 6, and by the time (s)he is good at it then it will have replaced Java EE 5. EE6 will be the first fully usable version of Java EE. It is also good to know the alternative stack for places that are alergic to standards. Get good at core Spring DI, Hibernate, Wicket and Struts 2. I`m not sure if the rest of Spring is worth learning.
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for your comments. I completely agree on the EE6 part.
My list would be some thing like this :
1.First prepare for SCJP – Read Kathy Seira’s scjp holy bible Head First Java first and then read SJP certification material. It’s important for one to understand the java objects and collections.It adds meaning every time you read through these books . Give yourself some real challenege by taking up some test in javablackbelt.com and get a couple of belts . It’s really tough , believe me.
2.Grab a latest copy of Head First Servlets and JSP , it’s really a cool book .Understand the basic web project and it’s structure.
3.Install Tomcat , try out the samples . Hello World would be a good start.Don’t use a IDE for these . Learn to write code in text pad or any text editor and compile it manually.
4.Learn Ant build and give yourself some time to write scripts to package , build and deploy WAR.
The era of J2EE has passed by , with Java 6 having released , let’s call it JEE.
Cheerz,
D
regarding the Ant build scripts, I think it is better to learn Maven as it is easier to use although there’s a bit of problems setting up the dependency packages.
@alwajdi
Yes. Maven is a better choice than Ant for big projects. I would suggest to know about Ant also since most of the JEE freshers will be starting to work on a relatively small projects and Ant will definitely help them in that.
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