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Hi, I'm 3 weeks in J2EE now more particularly in using JSP and Servlets. I haven't been exposed in using frameworks such as struts yet but would sooner or later be... I'm coping up fast with everything I'm taught so far but I know that J2EE is such broad collection of different technologies... So how would I evolve from here? I mean... I'm not really sure what projects they would be giving me in the future but in your opinion? How would I make the transition from JSP and Sevlets to other J2EE technologies(what's next to learn)? Thanks!
 
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Either work on a certification or wait to use it in practice. I find better to understand element of J2EE really well before moving on to another. As for practice coding, one of the properties of most J2EE items such as EJBs is that they make no sense to code if you are the only developer and its a simple system. So most EJB simple tutorials are by construction counter intuitive since real EJB examples would involve far more complicated systems.

If you're not using it yet, the certification is a good start. Even if you are coding soon, if they hired you and you told them that you weren't an expert, I doubt they're expecting you to pick everything up over night. I've found most 'experts' of J2EE are just people who've used it once or twice so I wouldn't worry too much.
 
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Hi Timothy,

Learning for your new project and learning something that you like are two different things. Because you cannot predict what your new project is going to be, then I�d advice you to learn something that is both interesting and useful: ORM & IoC. The days when people used Struts & EJBs are in my opinion (and not only :-)) almost gone. Is true that there are lots of legacy (remark the word legacy !) applications using Struts and EJB2.0 and you have fairly good chances to be assigned to such a project. Hence you might start from here if you want. However if you want to get a glimpse of the future then you can go through Spring and Hibernate. EJB 3.0 barrows lot of concepts from them too and you�ll be almost learning this as well. Another thing that you should be familiar with is about testing. Things like junit, jmock or jcoverage are not going to be replaced any day soon and they are broadly used. Also MVC (without Struts) is a great thing to know.
Regards.
 
Valentin Tanase
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Hi Scott,


I've found most 'experts' of J2EE are just people who've used it once or twice so I wouldn't worry too much.


I guess they are no experts then :-). One should probably worry more or less about that, depending upon the project s/he is working on and the kind of managers and tech leads that s/he has.
Regards.
 
Scott Selikoff
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I guess they are no experts then :-). One should probably worry more or less about that, depending upon the project s/he is working on and the kind of managers and tech leads that s/he has.
Regards.



I think the problem stems from the ambuigity of what J2EE means. It encompasses so many technologies that you can be an expert in one (like JSPs) part without ever using another part (like EJBs). On top of that, with the increased reliance on IDE's I've seen dozens of developers create EJBs without even understanding what an EJB was or how it worked, just using pre-defined wizards. Its a little scary to me.

To me, J2EE is a buzz term managers like to hear.
 
Timothy Sam
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[quote
The days when people used Struts & EJBs are in my opinion (and not only :-)) almost gone


Well that really scares me... But it probably wouldn't hurt if I try and learn them anyway...

Thanks for the reply guys... Just one last question...

Should I pay for my certification? Do I have to let the company know that I'm taking it? Thanks!
 
Scott Selikoff
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Most companies will pay so long as your manager pre-approves it. I'd check the company's policy before asking. Its not a good idea to ask them to pay if your not pretty sure you'll pass.
 
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The Sun Certified Java Associate may be the way forward for you.
 
Valentin Tanase
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Hi Scott,


On top of that, with the increased reliance on IDE's I've seen dozens of developers create EJBs without even understanding what an EJB was or how it worked, just using pre-defined wizards. Its a little scary to me.


Correct. As absurd as it sounds but in a way this is actually what it should be. Developers should implement simple java classes without knowing or caring much whether this is going to be deployed as an EJB, Web Service, CORBA Service and so on. Developers should only focusing on implementing business logic and being able to fully test the code, without any dependencies upon any type of container. I was thinking once about building a tool (using Doclet classes) that can generate fully-compatible EJB classes from a set of POJOs. However I gave up because of complexity of such task and the lack of time.
Regards.
 
Scott Selikoff
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Correct. As absurd as it sounds but in a way this is actually what it should be.


In theory, sure, but in practice this is very bad. For example, EJBs carry far more weight than a 'simple container' there are levels upon levels of services the J2EE server provides and not properly understanding this can lead to bad code and many bugs down the line.

Plus, and this is where a lot of my dislike lies, many IDEs screw up and are not bullet proof for J2EE software. I strongly feel anyone using EJBs for the first time should code one in notepad. If they can successfully do that, then they should use the IDE. Its like using MS FrontPage without understanding a line of HTML. Sure, you can get a page up, but it rarely looks good if you don't know any HTML concepts; there's often many 'artifacts' left over from poor use.
[ November 03, 2005: Message edited by: Scott Selikoff ]
 
Valentin Tanase
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Hi Scott,

I understand your frustration and I should probably explain better what I�m trying to say. I�m not saying that the IDEs are doing a great job; I�m saying that EJBs don�t, because they force developers to understand things that they shouldn�t. The point I�m trying to make is this: imagine that you open a basic text editor and start implementing a set of standard java classes, focusing on implementing only business logic; nothing else (no need to import the javax.ejb package, trowhing Remote/CreateExceptions, etc). The classes are also easily to be tested outside of the container, since they are only POJOs. Let�s imagine next that you can have a set of doclet tags that can specify whether from any of your classes you would generate SFSBs, SLSBs or entity EJBs. This would help developers to focus on developing the business logic and not doing any EJB specific task. Is what EJB3.0 is striving now, but is coming after the open source market put a lot of pressure on the big software guys (shame on them :-))
Regards.
 
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Valentin,

Bean providers must implement certain methods so that the container knows what to do in certain situations like during runtime exceptions or when a bean is no longer needed. Assembling the ejbs and deploying them is left to the application assembler and the deployer respectively. These positions would be required in any enterprise environment. Not one developer is suppose to do it all by far.

Btw, for the thread creator, I recommend learning EJBs next and the book EJB Head First.
[ November 25, 2005: Message edited by: joseph huang ]
 
Valentin Tanase
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Bean providers must implement certain methods so that the container knows what to do in certain situations like during runtime exceptions or when a bean is no longer needed. Assembling the ejbs and deploying them is left to the application assembler and the deployer respectively. These positions would be required in any enterprise environment. Not one developer is suppose to do it all by far.


Thank you for the J2EE lesson Joseph, but I have the feeling that you didn�t get the point here.
Regards.
 
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