Web Programming with Java (for web applications)

ITP864 - Web Programming with Java (for web applications)

Course description
This practical, application-oriented course teaches Java Servlets technology and shows how to use it to develop both simple and complex web applications. The course is intended for experienced Java (J2SE) programmers who want to build web applications or J2EE components and systems.

The course begins with an overview of server-side Java programming and web protocols. You then learn the Java Servlets architecture, the request/response cycle, servlet life cycle, and how to build interactive web applications that parse and/or generate HTML forms. Several prominent patterns for servlet application architecture are considered. Sessions are studied as a means to developing sophisticated client/server conversations over several HTML pages. Multi-tier applications are developed using servlets and JDBC for access to relational databases. The course develops the important concept of the separation of programmatic and declarative development: use of configuration and context information in lieu of hard-coded values, resource locations, etc., to make the web application as portable and easy to administer as possible. The course introduces JavaBeans as a standard for business and data objects that can be shared among servlets and JSPs, and develops techniques for sharing such objects at session scope or by request forwarding. Lastly, you will learn how to implement filters to adapt existing servlets by pre- and post-processing the request and response.

The first module includes an introduction of web applications in general, shows how Java servlets and JSPs establish a framework for writing web applications, and covers JSP 2.0 features in detail (from scripting elements to use of dedicated JavaBeans to JSP expressions, and quick introductions of JSTL and custom tag development).

By the end of the module you will be able to create your own JSP applications, including interactive applications using HTML forms and pages that perform fairly complex processing using scripts and/or actions. Although scripting is covered, the scriptless authoring style encouraged by the JSP 2.0 specification is emphasized, and you will be well equipped to develop concise and effective JSP applications.

Prerequisites
A basic understanding of the Java Programming Language, Object-oriented concepts, HTML, XML, web application architecture, and Database concepts.

What you will achieve

• Explain the fundamentals of HTML and HTTP in the World Wide Web.


• Describe JavaServer Pages and their relationship to servlets and J2EE generally.


• Describe how a JSP is translated into a servlet and processed at runtime.


• Explain the use of directives on JSPs and outline the principal directives.


• Implement simple JSPs that use Java code in declarations, expressions and scriptlets.


• Enumerate and use the implicit objects available to scripting elements.


• Implement an interactive web application using HTML forms and JSP.


• Use Java exception handling and JSP error pages to handle errors in JSP applications.


• Implement session management for a JSP application.


• Manage cookies to store client-specific information at various scopes and durations.


• Use JavaBeans to implement effective interactive JSP applications.


• Describe custom tags in JSP, explain how they are implemented (using both Java and JSP itself), and explain how they are used.


• Discuss threading issues in JSP and describe the use of directives to control how threading is handled.


• Describe the various uses of XML in JSP applications.


• Deploy a logical web application to a web server in a WAR file.


• Describe the use of the JSP expression language to simplify dynamic page output.


• Write JSP expressions and implement JSPs that use them in favor of scripts.


• Implement JSPs that use basic JSTL actions to simplify presentation logic.


• Decompose a JSP application design into fine-grained, reusable elements including JavaBeans, custom tag handlers, and tag files that use JSTL.


• Use core JSTL actions to complement standard actions, custom actions, and JSP expressions for seamless, script-free page logic.


• Direct conditional and iterative processing of page content by looping through ranges of numbers, over elements in a collection, or over tokens in a master string.


• Set locale and time zone information in JSPs, and use them to correctly format numbers, dates, and times for all clients.


• Use resource bundles to manage application strings, and produce the appropriate strings at runtime for a particular client locale.


• Locate a data source, query for relational data, and parse result sets.


• Perform updates, inserts, and deletes on relational data using SQL actions.


• Manage queries and updates in transaction contexts.


• Derive information from parsed XML content using XPath expressions.


• Implement conditional processing and loops based on XML information.


• Apply XSLT transformations to XML content.


• Implement a simple Web service that reads and writes SOAP.


• Understand and appreciate the role of Java Servlets in the overall Java 2 Enterprise Edition architecture, and as the best Java solution to HTTP application development.


• Use request and response objects provided to a servlet to read CGI parameters and to produce an HTML response


• Develop interactive web applications using HTML forms and servlets.


• Manage complex conversations with HTTP clients using session attributes.


• Understand the role of JDBC in Java persistence code, and use JDBC for persistence in servlet applications.


• Preserve portability and ease of administration for a servlet application by parameterizing servlet code, using initialization parameters, properties files, and JNDI.


• Use JavaBeans classes to share complex business data between components.


• Implement filters to adapt existing servlets with new features, and to maximize the decomposition of logic between vertical business functions and horizontal facilities.