I have been teaching web development for ten years. I started with Perl. I can still remember the behemoth programs that contained all the logic and HTML. I remember using a text editor to write the program. Debugging consisted of a lot of print statements. It was a fun time, full of exploration, but I do not miss them. Five years ago, I made the move to Java and Java servlets. Life became much simpler with the use of NetBeans. It has been a critical component in developing Web applications using Java. Debugging a web application in NetBeans is just as easy as debugging any Java application. This book is meant for students who have a solid background in programming, but who do not have any database training. Until two years ago, my students used a glori? ed HashMap to save data. Then a former student gave me the word: Hibernate. For anyone with a p- gramming background in Java, using Hibernate to save data to a re- tional database is a simple task. I have always been a proponent of automating the common tasks that Web applications perform. There are many packages that can s- plify the job of a Web developer: Log4j, BeanUtils and Hibernate. I have created additional classes that can automate additional tasks.
Web development is simpler than it seems, especially with the software tools freely available on the Web. This book breaks from the tradition of teaching a history of Web development and jumps to the good stuff from the outset so that students can start writing real applications.
This comprehensive textbook introduces readers to the three-tiered, Model-View-Controller architecture by using Hibernate, JSPs, and Java Servlets. These three technologies all use Java, so that a student with a background in programming will be able to master them with ease, with the end result of being able to create web applications that use MVC, validate user input and save data to a database.
Features and topics:
• Presents the many topics of web development in small steps, in an accessible, easy-to-follow style; focusing on the most important information first, and allowing the reader to gain basic understanding before moving forwards
• Uses existing powerful technologies that are freely available on the web to speed up web development, such as JSP, JavaBeans, Annotations, JSTL, Java 1.5, Hibernate and Tomcat
• Starts with the simplest technology for web development (JSP) and gradually introduces the reader to more complex topics
• Core technologies are introduced from the outset, such as the Model-View-Controller architecture
• Includes many helpful pedagogical tools for students and lecturers such as, an introduction to each topic, questions and exercises at the end of each chapter, detailed illustrations and chapter summaries
• By using Hibernate as the database tool in this book, there is no need for the reader to know SQL
Written for novice developers with a solid background in programming, but who do not have any database training, this thorough, easy-to-use book provides an exemplary introductory course in web development for undergraduates, as well as web developers. Withits straightforward and systematic style this text is also ideal for self-study.
Tim Downey has over ten years experience teaching web development, and has won Outstanding Teaching Awards in 1997, 2002, 2006 and 2007. He maintains the following active website which contains many complete examples and tutorials: http://www.bytesizebook.com/
