Java web development?

[Slamz]

I'm thinking of getting into some java web development. Specifically I want to be able to write applications that can:
Accept input, as from a browser
Store things in a database (especially MySQL)
Read and do stuff with that data
Output, as to a browser


Can anyone recommend a book for this? Otherwise I'm picking randomly from Amazon.

I've dimly familiar with Java -- it's what I'm using to do Droid apps so I might as well keep using it for web development.



Really my aim is to be able to write simple server code that can interface with Droid apps. Smartphones are severely limited in their ability to communicate with each other, so doing a client-server model with a web service playing the role of communication hub seems like the way to go (e.g., multiplayer gaming).

[Fretty]

That's exactly what I'm doing, except I use PHP for the web side of things and to communicate with my SQL databases.
And I believe you'd be looking for a book on Javascript, not Java, correct?

My issue is that I need to learn Java for coding for the smartphones themselves, the area you already know, heh.

[Slamz]

Java wasn't too tough:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html">http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html</a><!-- m -->
In particular: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/TOC.html">http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutor ... a/TOC.html</a><!-- m -->

I was already familiar with C# and Java has a lot of the same concepts. The only real problem with learning this stuff is that the Android SDK documentation is lacking. (Like it'll tell you about an API, tell you what a field is called but not give any reference or examples of what's actually supposed to go into that field. Like it'll say the field is "mode" but not tell you what "mode" means. I get a lot of mileage out of <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://stackoverflow.com">http://stackoverflow.com</a><!-- m --> looking up examples.)


Is Java not a thing that server-side applications could be programmed in? Javascript seems to have little in common with Java, so if it came to that I guess I should ask if I should learn Javascript or PHP?


This is the book I used to get rolling on Android:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118017110">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118017110</a><!-- m -->

If you want to do graphics, though, you'll need another book. That one purely covers push-button style applications. It does cover services and communications but nothing about 2-D game style graphics.

[Garignak]

Can anyone recommend a book for this?

There are indeed "billions and billions..." of them :-). Same with .NET tree abuse.

http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/03/...-read.html

[Slamz]

I think I have just been talked into trying "Ruby on Rails".

Apparently it's a hot new thing. Turns out Hostgator (which we use for thepurge.net) supports it and it can work on the Amazon Cloud as well. The claim is that it makes web stuff super easy. I shouldn't need anything too complex so I may try that first.

[Fretty]

Is Java not a thing that server-side applications could be programmed in? Javascript seems to have little in common with Java, so if it came to that I guess I should ask if I should learn Javascript or PHP?

Well, PHP and Javascript are languages that you use in a web document itself, such as these forums. These forums use HTML to show us what we see when we're here, but it uses PHP to pull that information from the SQL DB based on what the user is wanting to look at. PHP is more than just a bridge between website and DB though, of course, I won't get into all of that.

Java, as you know, creates applications that can be run, stand alone. I don't believe Java can be incorporated into HTML web pages...at least not as far as I know...

As for Ruby on Rails, I know very little about that except that I hear it more and more lately. I believe it's a brand new "up and coming" language. I don't know it's pros or cons or what it's supposed to offer that other languages don't already offer.

[Snowreap]

you can create web applications in Java using something like Apache Tomcat and/or Apache Struts. I don't find it as simple and easy as .NET web application development, but Tomcat and Struts have the significant advantages of being cross-platform and open source. yes, Mono is free also, but feature-wise it's not nearly as nice as current versions of .NET, and if you want to use those nice features you need to be using Windows servers.

-ken

[Slamz]

you can create web applications in Java using something like Apache Tomcat and/or Apache Struts

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Advantage being I'm already learning Java anyway and it would be something that could be run on Unix, Linux and Windows servers.

I'm curious what's the most popular though. What looks best on a resume?

"Ruby on Rails" seems to be kind of like C#.NET in the sense that "Ruby" is the underlying language and not, in itself, all that useful, but "Rails" is a big open source library of routines meant to make writing web apps easier. Ruby is old -- 1995, but it seems like Rails has been catching on recently. Someone I know applied to a job with Amazon and said that's what they're looking for now: Ruby on Rails developers.

I'm not a fan of Ruby syntax. I guess like anything else, you get used to it, but it's quite a bit different than C and Java.