Welcome to the first installment of Journeyman J2EE. I'm honored to present this new bi-monthly column of ruminations and reactions as I, like so many of you, make my foray through the vast world of J2EE application development and deployment. But this isn't intended just for newbie J2EE developers. On the contrary, I hope to also share tips and techniques of value to experienced JSP/servlet developers.
The definition of a journeyman is "a competent and reliable performer or exponent." To me, it connotes a day-to-day working craftsman.
Does this describe you? Are you like a journeyman infielder in professional baseball (apologies to international readers)? It's not that a journeyman isn't valuable to the team. Journeymen contribute in a professional, competent, workman-like way, and strive to improve their abilities and refine their craft.
That's the goal of the Journeyman column, which began nearly two years ago as a monthly column in our sister magazine, ColdFusion Developer's Journal: to share tips and techniques that aren't quite advanced, but aren't quite beginner either. With four years as a Web application developer (mostly in ColdFusion), trainer, and writer, and 20 years of IT experience, I hope I'm in a position to discover and share useful observations.
Filling a Gap for Both Experienced
and Newcomer J2EE Developers
Some of you may scoff at my mentioning experience in ColdFusion (which is really a shame, since it's often unfairly maligned). The bottom line is that it's a Web application development platform, just as ASP, PHP, and J2EE are. Admittedly, each has its own distinct flavor and unique capabilities.
But when it comes down to it, there really are quite a lot of similarities among all Web application development platforms: HTTP processing, opportunities for client enhancement, clever form-processing tricks, effective database integration, session processing, and lots more.
As I move into the J2EE arena I notice that quite a few techniques and approaches used by developers on those other platforms haven't made it into the toolbag of many J2EE developers. Perhaps it's because the focus for them has been more on simply getting into Web apps as they move from Java client to server development. But we who develop on those other platforms have been doing Web apps for years, playing all manner of tricks with browsers, sharing data between Web sites, and more. Maybe these experiences can be of value to J2EE developers.
So on the one hand, the column will speak to experienced J2EE developers by offering Web application development ideas that may be new to them.
On the other hand, if you're making the leap from another Web app development platform to J2EE, you have an entirely separate set of problems, not the least of which is coping with learning Java in general, and then all the capabilities of J2EE. You not only need to figure out how to apply your previous Web app experience in this new platform, but you need to deal with peculiarities and unique features enabled in J2EE.
