Java Web Programming Training

Review of the company Web applications environment

■ Basic concepts

• Web client and server. Application protocols (HTTP). CGI scripts and managing sessions.
• Access to the company's resources: RDBMS, document database and XML, transaction monitor, directory, inherited application.
• HTML-XML, Java applets.
• The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform. Multi-tier architecture.

Development based on servlets

■ Presentation of the components required for server-side Java use

• Web server and server platform. Servlet engine. Java Virtual Machine.

■ Presentation of the development and operating environment

• Development and de-bugging tools: NetBeans and Eclipse.
• The architecture of Apache's Web container, Tomcat.
• Deploying servlets and JSP pages.

■ Developing an initial servlet

• Generating dynamic content. The structure of a servlet.

Web applications and servlets

■ Developing a Web application based on servlets

• The servlet container. The life cycle of a servlet.
• Initialising a servlet. Writing the service methods.
• Handling HTML forms.
• Processing the response, sending information, generating HTML.
• Filtering requests/responses. Programming filters.
• Retrieving information: from the Web server, the client and the environment.
• Invoking other Web resources. Including and transferring control.

■ Handling errors and logging events

• Handling execution errors. Handling and using Java exceptions.
• Sending http errors. Logging events.

■ Monitoring sessions

• The various methods.
• Obtaining, consulting and abandoning sessions. The session environment.

Presentation of Java Server Pages

■ Presentation of the objectives and the architecture

• Objectives. Mechanism of operation. Examples of JSP pages.

■ Development technique

• Scriptlets. Integrating them in the Web page.
• JSP directives, declarations, expressions and actions.
• Versions of the language, XML syntax.

■ Using JavaBeans from JSP pages

• Definition, creation, deployment and use.
• Accessing and modifying them from a JSP page.

■ Developing applications with the help of JSP

• Combining JSP and servlets. Including applets.
• Accessing the company's resources.

Tag libraries

■ The principle of tag extensions and libraries

• Introduction to tag extensions.
• Operation. Example of their use.

■ Developing tag extensions

• Developing your own tags. Simple tags, with attributes, with a body, embedded.
• Deploying and using a tag library.

■ Presentation of JSTL (Java Standard Tag Library)

• Designing JSPs with JSTL. Examples.
• The various libraries: core, XML, i18n, SQL, functions.

Accessing databases

■ Studying an application with access to relational databases

• Putting the database and the JDBC interface in place.
• Connecting to the database, retrieving information, updating data.
• Transaction. Connection pool.
• Different connection methods. DataSources: configuring and using them.

■ BDRs/Object models correspondence

• Objectives. Java tools and approaches.
• Presentation of the SimpleORM (Simple Java Object Relational Mapping) framework

Introduction to Struts

■ Using an MVC-type (Model, View, Controller) framework

• Presentation. Architecture. The components of the framework.
• Handling events. Configuring the application.
• Struts Tag Libraries and Extension.

Making the application secure

• Security in a Web environment. Notions of users, realms, roles.
• Authentication and authorisation.
• Security and programming servlets.
• Installing and configuring SSL. Digital certificates.
• Java Authentication and Authorization Service.
• Configuring Tomcat.

Hands-on work
Adding access security to the site constructed.

Other development techniques

■ Re-usable framework and package

• Uploading files (FileUpload package).
• De-bugging/logging (Logging package).
• Tests and performance. JUnit, Open Source framework for writing tests. Cactus, server-side test framework.

■ In the pipeline from Sun...

• JSF (Java Server Faces), objectives, example.