[Noisebridge-discuss] Request for Expertise: Java EE

[William Sargent]

  On 10/18/2010 8:53 PM, Gardner wrote:
> Hello,
>   I have a strong command of the Java language and I have recently 
> been teaching myself Java EE using NetBeans and GlassFish. I find 
> myself getting hung up on simple configuration issues that take me 
> hours to resolve. Are there any NoiseBridgers out there that know this 
> stuff like the back of their hand? Does anyone want to do an informal 
> introductory session?
>

This is the problem with J2EE -- it's just a bitch to learn and most of 
it is configuration stuff you'll need to know once after which you'll 
never need it again.

The good news is that J2EE isn't one technology.  It's a bunch of 
different libraries glommed together with some marketing.  So while 
you'll need the servlet API, there are several less useful parts of the 
spec that you can safely ignore (i.e. JSF, the web framework so useless 
it couldn't even support HTTP GET in its first version.)

If you want to do something useful with J2EE, probably the first thing 
to do is download a working J2EE application and see what you can take 
apart.  There is a framework called "AppFuse Light" 
(https://appfuse-light.dev.java.net/) which may be a little out of date 
(not stared at it recently) but should give you at least an idea of how 
the different pieces fit together.

And... well, you're not alone.  This is what happened when I first got 
to grips with it: http://tersesystems.com/2005/10

Will.