Java EE 5 for beginners

Java EE (Enterprise Edition) or previously known by J2EE, “The most widespread web-development platform”.

J2EE is a platform-independent, Java environment from Sun Microsystems for developing, building and deploying Web-based enterprise applications online. Java EE platform consists of a set of components, APIs, and protocols that provide the functionality for developing multitiered, Web-based applications.

Although J2EE was mainly designed to simplify application development process in a thin client tier environment, most of the beginners who start learning Java EE complain from the sophistication of platform architecture, terms, interfering of technologies and multiplicity of development environments. Actually these are the other side of coin in open source field, while the increasing of open source development by many vendors strength the platform and introduce better services, the multiplicity of tools and terminologies affect the end developer negatively. Most of beginners get confused about EE with a lot of question they face when start learning, such as where and how to start? Read books (Java how to program, Java core....etc.) or start with web tutorials!, Read in what? Servlets, JSP, Struts, EJB or JSF!!, Which IDE and Application Server? Eclipse with WebSphere, NetBeans with JBOSS or Jdeveloper with OC4J!!. Those were samples of common questions and problems that beginners usually suffer from.

We plan to publish a series of articles which mainly target the beginner developer who want to learn Java EE from scratch, it will be extension to (Explore the Java Platform: Overview, Part I, II and III) written by Youssef Momdouh and it will cover the following:

- Overview
- Java EE architecture
- Platform components (Servlets, JSP, EJB, JSF… etc.)
- API’s specifications, such as JDBC, RMI, e-mail, JMS, web services, XML… etc.
- Application Server configuring and deploying

The series is designed in a simple form to avert the common difficulties which usually face the beginners, each article will describe new concept -according to the course table- followed by applied example. Finally there will be an assignment to test your understanding for the concept, we also will try to help you in troubleshooting as much as we can.

Please, do not hesitate to provide us with your notes, feedback and reviews, to enhance the introduced content and spread the benefits. Wish you find it useful.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J2EE#Java_EE_5_application_server_certified