Question

I know how to write programs in Java and C++, and would like to learn how servers, databases and Internet based applications work so I could start developing them.

Where should I start? What should I learn first? What books would you recommend for me?

Thank you, in advance 🙂

Answer 1

I would start by either trying Tomcat which would let you create fairly basic web applications. I would start by playing around with either servlettes or JSPs. There is a lot documentation and examples.

Or you could start by downloading and playing around with a database. PostgreSQL is really good. It is free and they have a tool called pgadmin which is a really good ide.

Once you have been able to get these set up and working I would then start taking a look at some various frameworks that exist to make using these tools a lot easier. For example, you could take a look at Guice or Spring for dependency injection or a range of other tools. This is a comparison of each.

You will also probably want to also look into Velocity, Freemarker, or struts, or something similar. These will make your life a lot easier.

For the database you could look at: Hibernate or MyBatis, both are really good and function slightly differentially. Hibernate is very commonly used and they cache objects very efficiently.