Question

I am a full time rubyist, really enjoying rails, Sinatra, etc. Currently, however, I find myself working on a Java/TomCat/JSP project.

I was hoping someone could help me find tools, articles, books, and any other resources that will make me more comfortable?

I’m aware that Java is very different from Ruby, and the communities, likewise, are very different. That being said, all of the documentation around Java (that I have found) is a mess, and discovery is very difficult in this community.

Things I’m specifically looking for:

• development environment setup tips
• logger, logging, colorful output, best practice, etc
• library resources and documentation
• easy to navigate documentation for Java SE 6
• anything you have found that makes your daily life better

Thanks!

Answer 1

first of all you are on the right road to discover how elegant Java EE is. since you adressed various topics i will divide my answer into different parts :

• Development environment:
  Without further talk i will advise you to directly go and pick your eclipse Java EE Juno (last release) version, however if you’d like to have a look at other IDEs you can either check NetBeans 7.2 (last release) or IntelliJIDEA 11.2 Ultimate (last release i know of and that I have). Basically Eclipse has tons of plugins and features and backed up by a very great, large and passionate community.

[ i personally tried NetBeans, and IntellijIDEA, but felt more comfortable with Eclipse because of its look, features, cool color theme etc]

For JSP and HTML, CSS ,JS stuff, i however recommend the great IDE of Jetbrains Webstorm it has zen coding as well as many many other things like fast auto completion and support for many frameworks.

Lastly, pick up Sublime Text 2 as a text editor for quick edits or to just check a source file, it has a very beautiful layout and support for many languages as well as tons of plugins.

• Ressources and documentations :

All the Java API specifications are available for offline viewing for free in Oracle’s website and come packaged with the various SDK that are available there.

• The easy to navigate documentation :
  Eclipse IDE makes it very easy to attach JavaDoc and Source to the different jar files that make up a JDK, that said, your learning and coding experience will be greatly increased once you’ve set that up.So when you type Connection for example in IDE, you can simple hold Ctrl command then right click on it and the source code of the class implementation would be opened in a different tab. yes yes it’s the power of the open source world 🙂

• Concerning tips and tricks :
  I’ll recommend you use //TODO comments as Eclipse has support for them and you can setup your own TODO comments in settings, also you can use TASK comments, you’ve Mylyn too to manage your bugs, tasks either locally or connect to your favorite bug and issue tracker through a connector since many connectors are available for such purpose. Add to this list the possibility to configure bookmarks to help you manage your source files when they become full of lines.

• About Tomcat:
  Well if your goal is to make Java EE applications that do not require the advanced features of the Java EE specification, then you can use the sweet Tomcat, it’s easy to use and configure and a well known web container.

However if that’s not the case, and you wanna specialize in Java and spend lots of time to try to understand the ins and outs of this huge specification, you are likely to need a certified Application Server that supports all Java EE components. There are lot of them available, but since you asked for advise and I am here giving my modest suggestions I would advise you to pick the GlassFish Application Server, it’s Open Source, and once you install it on Eclipse IDE for example, it will be bundled with both Java EE 5 and Java EE 6 API doc. This means no time to be wasted on browsing different tools and tabs, you will have everything grouped inside your Eclipse IDE so that you are 100% on the tasks at hand.

p.s: if you’ve any more questions please feel free to ping me.

• Any good tip or trick :
  Have fun with Java, because you will be learning everyday something new 🙂

p.s: i didn’t mention any framework, because by the time you get used to Java EE you will be in position to pick the one that suits your needs. Also forgot to mention JUnit (Testing Framework) and a great eclipse plugin EClemma for code coverage (much better than Cobertura/eCobertura and easier to use), and of course you can try Maven as the other post mentioned, or try Apache Ant as build tool.