How do I build websites using java?

[ryy705]

Hi,
I have been trying to learn how to create web services for last few weeks. In the process I learned about xml, mySQL, JDBC, servelets, and javabeans. At this point, if you give a specific task such as 'get price for a certain item from the database and display it on the webpage' I can do it. However, I stil don't get the big picture. I don't know how I should put together JDBC, servlets, ejb and jsp and build a professional site.

Lets say for example, I have a MySQL database with the following fields:
task_id, task_name, task_day, task_description.

Now I want to build a webpage where I can access and munipulate the information. What is the proper and professional way of doing this?
Many thanks in advance.

[jwenting]

start small, learn the individual technologies and see what their strengths and weaknesses are, then combine the strengths so you aren't bothered by the weaknesses ;)

In reality noone talks about "beans", they're just objects you use to pass data along.
That doesn't mean noone uses them, but they're so prevalent it makes no sense to treate them differently from other things (the BDK is dead and burried for years).

In a professional environment you'd use JSP solely for displaying data provided to those JSPs by servlets via objects set in the request or session. Those JSPs should use JSTL or JSF, no scriptlets at all.

The servlets may call EJBs to perform business logic, themselves doing nothing but forming a layer that translates between the JSP and the EJB and channeling data to the proper places, or they may contain business logic as well (usually delegated to helper classes).

In reality most people don't use raw servlets and EJBs directly, instead using frameworks to put everything together.
Spring is an excellent (and popular) framework.
Struts used to be popular but has pretty much lost its appeal by now (and rightly so).
Hibernate is also much used.

[ryy705]

Thanks for your reply. I am caught up in my school work right now. Hopefully will post more questions soon.