R
Rhino
I've been reading a lot of job descriptions lately and I have the distinct
impression that most professional Java programming jobs are looking for J2EE
skills. I've been coding in Java for quite a while but I've largely confined
myself to J2SE. I've written a variety of applications, applets, servlets
(using Tomcat), and even some J2ME midlets. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing
much demand for _any_ of those skills so I think I need to learn J2EE to be
attractive to employers in the job market.
So, assuming you agree that J2EE is the way to go - and please tell me if
you don't agree since I'd be quite happy to do a job that uses the skills I
already have - how do I go about learning J2EE quickly but relatively
painlessly? And inexpensively! I'm afraid money is tight and I don't have
hundreds or thousands of dollars to spare to buy expensive software or
shelves full of books.
There is a lot of buzz about open source projects lately so I was giving
some thought to participating in one of those projects so that I could learn
these technologies. But that fact of the matter is that it's mostly alphabet
soup to me right now: I'm not really sure what most of the technologies
actually are.
For example, I was at JBoss.org just now and found lots of documentation
that seemed moderate to advanced but very little in the way of basics. I was
not able to find anything that says what JBoss actually _is_. I _thought_ it
was a servlet container the way Tomcat is but
http://www.jboss.com/docs/index describes it an an application server and
lists both JBoss and Tomcat as "JEMS Products" - without explaining what
JEMS is. In short, I find myself getting snarled up trying to understand
what the different pieces are and how they interrelate but not knowing how
to find out.
Now, let me emphasize that I probably don't _care_ that much about JBoss in
particular. I'm really just using this as an example to explain where I am
and where I want to go.
I think I basically need some kind of grand orientation tour to find out
what all of these products and techologies are, at least in basic terms.
I've been seeing a lot of acronyms in the job descriptions and I think I
need some kind of a roadmap or overview or something so that I know what the
different pieces _do_ and how they fit together. I can look up the meaning
of an acronym easily enough on my own but knowing the JAXB stands for Java
Applications Xylophone Brigade (or whatever it REALLY stands for) doesn't
tell me what JAXB _does_ and how it integrates with JBoss. Or is it a
replacement for JBoss? I really don't know if they tie together in some way,
are completely independent, or are alternatives to one another.
Can someone point me to some kind of J2EE-newbie orientation to help me
start to find my way? Right now, I feel a bit as if I've been kidnapped,
blindfolded, thrown out of a plane over a country I've never heard of, and
landed in a place where I don't know any of the rules. The natives speak
English but they have a very exotic vocabulary and use words like JMeter,
SOAP, and JMX a lot. I have no idea if those are cities in their country,
the names of the political parties, their favourite TV shows, pop stars, or
swear words.
If anyone can suggest an efficient way to get oriented, I would appreciate
it a lot!
impression that most professional Java programming jobs are looking for J2EE
skills. I've been coding in Java for quite a while but I've largely confined
myself to J2SE. I've written a variety of applications, applets, servlets
(using Tomcat), and even some J2ME midlets. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing
much demand for _any_ of those skills so I think I need to learn J2EE to be
attractive to employers in the job market.
So, assuming you agree that J2EE is the way to go - and please tell me if
you don't agree since I'd be quite happy to do a job that uses the skills I
already have - how do I go about learning J2EE quickly but relatively
painlessly? And inexpensively! I'm afraid money is tight and I don't have
hundreds or thousands of dollars to spare to buy expensive software or
shelves full of books.
There is a lot of buzz about open source projects lately so I was giving
some thought to participating in one of those projects so that I could learn
these technologies. But that fact of the matter is that it's mostly alphabet
soup to me right now: I'm not really sure what most of the technologies
actually are.
For example, I was at JBoss.org just now and found lots of documentation
that seemed moderate to advanced but very little in the way of basics. I was
not able to find anything that says what JBoss actually _is_. I _thought_ it
was a servlet container the way Tomcat is but
http://www.jboss.com/docs/index describes it an an application server and
lists both JBoss and Tomcat as "JEMS Products" - without explaining what
JEMS is. In short, I find myself getting snarled up trying to understand
what the different pieces are and how they interrelate but not knowing how
to find out.
Now, let me emphasize that I probably don't _care_ that much about JBoss in
particular. I'm really just using this as an example to explain where I am
and where I want to go.
I think I basically need some kind of grand orientation tour to find out
what all of these products and techologies are, at least in basic terms.
I've been seeing a lot of acronyms in the job descriptions and I think I
need some kind of a roadmap or overview or something so that I know what the
different pieces _do_ and how they fit together. I can look up the meaning
of an acronym easily enough on my own but knowing the JAXB stands for Java
Applications Xylophone Brigade (or whatever it REALLY stands for) doesn't
tell me what JAXB _does_ and how it integrates with JBoss. Or is it a
replacement for JBoss? I really don't know if they tie together in some way,
are completely independent, or are alternatives to one another.
Can someone point me to some kind of J2EE-newbie orientation to help me
start to find my way? Right now, I feel a bit as if I've been kidnapped,
blindfolded, thrown out of a plane over a country I've never heard of, and
landed in a place where I don't know any of the rules. The natives speak
English but they have a very exotic vocabulary and use words like JMeter,
SOAP, and JMX a lot. I have no idea if those are cities in their country,
the names of the political parties, their favourite TV shows, pop stars, or
swear words.
If anyone can suggest an efficient way to get oriented, I would appreciate
it a lot!
