I've become extremely interested in learning how to create web applications, however I'm not quite sure where to start as there are an abundance of different technologies I can use. I've been learning JSP the past few days, a little bit of the Spring framework, some PHP, and MySQL, however I'm at a loss at how I can just combine everything into one application. Basically here's what topics I need advice for:

1. What are generally accepted "decent" technologies I should learn?
2. Any good resources where I can learn this stuff (I'm an absolute beginner)?
3. How do I put it all together and actually create a web application?

My goal is to create a knowledge base type site where a user can login and have access to a multitude of different resources. I feel like this shouldn't be to hard of a goal to accomplish, I just need a little point in the right direction

 

Lastly, I'd rather not learn PHP or ASPX so please don't suggest it.

The easiest way of doing what you describe is JSP linking to database via SQL. Easiest to implement with knowledge of JAVA/HTML/CSS also. I would say that unless done properly it's not the most secure.

I know you said not to suggest, but if you want to do a 'proper' job, I'd suggest learning PHP.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=guide+to+java+servlet+pages is what you'd need

Basically just need knowledge of java classes, sessions cookies and maybe some more

As for creating the web application, if you mean the separate user pages, then it's just pages with security requirements..


EDIT: Obviously what I described above is only for a very simple application. Depending where you want to go then you'd need to improve vastly.

Edited April 30, 201411 yr by Yinz

The easiest way of doing what you describe is JSP linking to database via SQL. Easiest to implement with knowledge of JAVA/HTML/CSS also. I would say that unless done properly it's not the most secure.

I know you said not to suggest, but if you want to do a 'proper' job, I'd suggest learning PHP.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=guide+to+java+servlet+pages is what you'd need

Basically just need knowledge of java classes, sessions cookies and maybe some more

As for creating the web application, if you mean the separate user pages, then it's just pages with security requirements..

EDIT: Obviously what I described above is only for a very simple application. Depending where you want to go then you'd need to improve vastly.

Yeah I've been doing stuff with JSP the past few days and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I feel like I'm over complicating things in my head and expecting this to be an extremely hard thing to do, when in reality it's not that bad.

I find a good project to learn everything, is obviously to have a project which involves everything you want to learn. Try this:

 

I want an admin panel where I can put my own private tools e.g. 

 

- Notes page (Textarea I can type notes into and save for later editing/viewing)

- A page to add user/admin logins for the panel (Ability to create a user that can login to the panel, also be able to remove and/or change the user details)

 

With the login page I would like for it to login using an jQuery AJAX Post function. 

 

This is very simple but it should teach you the basic of jQuery/PHP/MySQL/HTML and CSS. And will cover topics such as sessions, database and user security etc...