C# .NET versus Java EE?

[SoupDragon]

Given the choice, I would go for Java since I already have experience using the core language. What do I need for server side dev? EJBs? Which MVC framework? Hibernate for database access?

[Cowboy Bob]

Given the choice, I would go for Java since I already have experience using the core language. What do I need for server side dev? EJBs? Which MVC framework? Hibernate for database access?

Learn as much as you can - the Java APIs both interal and 3rd party are quite extensive. There are some that are essential though.

The big three to learn are EJBs, Struts, WebSphere. DB access will normally be "bean managed persistence" through to stored procedures in my experience - and a lot of the time you'll be creating the stored procedures, so you'll more than likely need to know PL/SQL or similar.

Hibernate is not that common to find, you tend to see it in partnership with Spring as a lighter-weight alternative to Struts/EJBs - though mostly you'll tend to see this combination in the more dynamic companies, the corporates tend to be the big three above.

Finally, get to know the main Apache libraries (Ant, Log4J, Commons-*, Axis, Lucene) as they come up all the time.

[SoupDragon]

Learn as much as you can - the Java APIs both interal and 3rd party are quite extensive. There are some that are essential though.

The big three to learn are EJBs, Struts, WebSphere. DB access will normally be "bean managed persistence" through to stored procedures in my experience - and a lot of the time you'll be creating the stored procedures, so you'll more than likely need to know PL/SQL or similar.

Hibernate is not that common to find, you tend to see it in partnership with Spring as a lighter-weight alternative to Struts/EJBs - though mostly you'll tend to see this combination in the more dynamic companies, the corporates tend to be the big three above.

Finally, get to know the main Apache libraries (Ant, Log4J, Commons-*, Axis, Lucene) as they come up all the time.

Thanks

[OwlHoot]

Learn as much as you can - the Java APIs both interal and 3rd party are quite extensive. There are some that are essential though.

The big three to learn are EJBs, Struts, WebSphere. DB access will normally be "bean managed persistence" through to stored procedures in my experience - and a lot of the time you'll be creating the stored procedures, so you'll more than likely need to know PL/SQL or similar.

Hibernate is not that common to find, you tend to see it in partnership with Spring as a lighter-weight alternative to Struts/EJBs - though mostly you'll tend to see this combination in the more dynamic companies, the corporates tend to be the big three above.

Finally, get to know the main Apache libraries (Ant, Log4J, Commons-*, Axis, Lucene) as they come up all the time.

How about Tomcat? I dabbled with Java + Tomcat for a couple of days, and it seemed OK. But judging by the regular effing and blinding of my fellow contractor who worked with it full time it isn't as reliable and user-friendly as it might be (or else he was thick ;-) )

[Cowboy Bob]

How about Tomcat? I dabbled with Java + Tomcat for a couple of days, and it seemed OK. But judging by the regular effing and blinding of my fellow contractor who worked with it full time it isn't as reliable and user-friendly as it might be (or else he was thick ;-) )

Tomcat is fine except for 3 major things that clients don't like:-

1) It doesn't support EJBs
2) You can't cluster it
3) No support for caching dynamic content to reduce server load

So a bit like PHP, fine for small scale development, not so good for high traffic deployments.

It's worthwhile to use Tomcat as a lightweight development environment to learn basic J2EE, though I'd recommend OC4J Standalone personally as it does support EJBs and other more advanced features, but is also pretty lightweight and starts up faster than Tomcat (it's the core of Oracle Application Server but without all the heavyweight consoles, reporting and deployment tools).

[swamp]

IMO:

* Hibernate is overtaking EJB entity beans. Good riddance!
* Spring is becoming a must. As are JUnit, ANT, EasyMock etc.
* Struts is old hat and cumbersome. Use Spring MVC or Webwork and Velocity templates.
* Websphere has overtaken Weblogic. Other app servers are OK, but get some exposure to Websphere or Weblogic (download dev verson...)
* Oracle is the biggest RDBMS, but Sybase is still very popular in the City. Don't bother with other databases.

[sli_gryn]

IMO:

* Hibernate is overtaking EJB entity beans. Good riddance!
* Spring is becoming a must. As are JUnit, ANT, EasyMock etc.
* Struts is old hat and cumbersome. Use Spring MVC or Webwork and Velocity templates.
* Websphere has overtaken Weblogic. Other app servers are OK, but get some exposure to Websphere or Weblogic (download dev verson...)
* Oracle is the biggest RDBMS, but Sybase is still very popular in the City. Don't bother with other databases.

Seconded! but have a look at jboss (for appserver, scarily common!) and the new EJB3 (borrowed heavily from hibernate annotations)

[Cowboy Bob]

IMO:

* Hibernate is overtaking EJB entity beans. Good riddance!
* Spring is becoming a must. As are JUnit, ANT, EasyMock etc.
* Struts is old hat and cumbersome. Use Spring MVC or Webwork and Velocity templates.

Like I said in a previous post. The Hibernate/Spring model will nearly always only be found in smallish, dynamic companies. The larger corporates are mostly still Struts/EJBs. Personally I've dealt with both (even have my own extensions to Spring MVC to overcome some of it's shortcomings up on Sourceforge - though with the Web Flow subproject it's obsolete now).

However, Struts/EJBs is still by far the most common technology out there in the marketplace at the moment, so for the newbie looking to get a contract it would be my advice to learn these technologies first. After that, go for the Hibernate/Spring model to broaden your depth of experience - and use a completely different paradigm for development which IMO is always a good thing.

[Shimano105]

What the hell are you lot on about? Is this a geek's willy waving contest?

[sunnysan]

Java Rules

I swithced over to Java from C# environment and I must say I havent looked back.

I was lucky that with my work I was able to do this but its done now.

Personally, I found the differences in terminology and environment. IE Mastering Maven projects etc. The programming aspect was easy enough and learning what the frameworks where trying to accomplish was easy although WHY they where doing it took a bit of time as I think you need to get into the flow of the Java Open Source Projects to start understanding why each project is moving in the direction it is.

I have not really dealt too much with J2EE par se, but have spent most time on Struts/Spring/Hibernate and related techs

I am most impressed with Eclipse which seems to be becoming the de facto IDE for the java developer. Its still pretty lightweight and you can install any array of plugins for different functionality. Its also open source .

I will not look back. Bye Bye M$