Re: Developing a webapplication with JSF/J2EE: where do I start?

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, James Perkins wrote:

> I am by no means an expert. I keep learning something about Java each day. I
> would strongly advise not use the <%%> tags though. I created an intranet
> site at the last place I worked that used Java code and <%%> all over the
> pages. It was my first attempt at Java/JSP coding and it's now just a mess!
>
> Take a look at the JSTL tags and the expression language (EL). It will give
> you MUCH cleaner pages.

It wasn't until I started going through the Spring tutorials that I 
found out tag libraries existed.  I wish I had known about them earlier. 
I have a lot of JSP that could have been a lot simpler.

It has been somewhat difficult for me to determine what to focus my 
learning on.  There are a myriad of frameworks and techniques and it is 
easy for me to get lost in the jargon and the sheer numbers of ways to do 
things.

Previously I had been coding classes for each database file and a factory 
for each class, then using the factories directly in my JSP to get 
objects.  Everything was working fine but I had a few snags.  So I spoke 
with a big java developer friend and he asked me what framework(s) I was 
using.  My blank stare was my only answer.  He was rather incredulous that 
I wasn't using Spring and Hibernate - even more so when I told him I had 
no idea what he was talking about.  So I've spent the last few weeks 
reading everything I can find out frameworks.  I'm very interested in 
using the MVC design pattern, but even after following the tutorials very 
closely I'm not convinced that I'm doing it right.  Of course, tag libs 
have been very nice.

James Rich

if you want to understand why that is, there are many good books on
the design of operating systems. please pass them along to redmond
when you're done reading them :)
	- Paul Davis on ardour-dev