On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 11:30:16AM -0500, rob caSSon wrote:
> i'm just starting out, but want to make things as smooth/organized as
> possible....are others doing this kind of development?  are you using
> build scripts with ant?  are you using an IDE like eclipse?  if so,
> what plugins do you suggest?  any good opensoure projects you've used as
> models/code-exploration?

We use Java servlet technology here at Follett heavily. In my particular
group we use Tomcat as our container, and rely entirey on Ant for doing
builds. We all use different editors (I use vim), but it would be kinda
nice if we all used Eclipse :)

Here are some fun things to explore when programming in Java (for the
web and otherwise):

    - JSP (Java Server Pages) a PHP like templating language for Servlets
    - JSF (Java Server Faces) a GUI framework for Servlets
    - Object-Relational-Mapping tools for abstracting database relational
      interactions. ORM tools essentially makes tables into Java classes,
      and your rows into Java objects. There are several options for ORM in
      Java (Hibernate, Cayenne, Apache's Object Relational Bridge, and
      more). Hibernate is probably the most widely used.
    - Memory caching frameworks for really fast applications: Perst, db4o,
      prevayler.
    - Lightweight containers such as Spring for assembling your classes
      into applications.
    - Apache's Lucene for indexing text and just about anything you might
      want to index.

The language and the SDK itself are formidable in themselves. I've found
my copy of the Java Cookbook from O'Reilly to be a great resource for
finding entry points into the javadoc. Joshua Bloch's Effective Java is
also a valuable slim books on the dos/don'ts of programming in Java.

Also, create an account on unalog [http://www.unalog.com] since
some of programmer types in libraries use it to share links to articles
software packages. A nice way to keep up to date with what's going on.

The journey of thousand miles starts with one step, so just writing a
simple application is the best way to learn a new language.

Good luck!
//Ed

--
Ed Summers
aim: inkdroid
web: http://www.inkdroid.org

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. [Yeats]