Comprehensive Overview of Skills and Knowledge Required for a Java Web Project

Recently the author has completed several Java Web projects, both commercial and personal, and writes this article to record the skills and knowledge required throughout the project lifecycle, offering beginners a comprehensive perspective and a roadmap for targeted learning.

The typical architecture of a website is divided into front‑end and back‑end. In classic Java Web development the presentation layer is built with JSP, complemented by HTML, CSS, JavaScript and AJAX. The back‑end implements business logic in Java and interacts with a database, following the MVC (Model‑View‑Controller) pattern. The back‑end code is usually organized into layers such as controller, service, DAO, and persistence, with optional interface layers for decoupling, and more complex projects may add caching, clustering, and load‑balancing layers.

Key technologies include front‑end basics (HTML, CSS, JS, AJAX, JSP) and template engines (Tiles, Velocity, FreeMarker); persistence frameworks (MyBatis, Hibernate); the Spring ecosystem (Spring, Spring MVC) for dependency injection and AOP; Maven for build automation; Log4j for logging; Git for version control; relational databases (MySQL, Oracle) and NoSQL stores (MongoDB, Redis). Mastering these enables developers to start writing Java Web applications.

After coding, the application must be deployed to an application server such as Tomcat, Jetty, or JBoss. Application servers run dynamic technologies like JSP and Servlets. A separate web server (e.g., Nginx or Apache) handles HTTP requests and forwards them to the application server, providing load balancing, CDN acceleration, and improved performance in production environments.

Servers are essentially computers running a *nix operating system (CentOS, Ubuntu, etc.) without a graphical interface, hosting server software like Tomcat, Jetty, Nginx, or Apache. Understanding the operating system and basic shell commands is essential for managing these environments.

In summary, building a simple Java Web project involves writing code with the aforementioned frameworks, provisioning a Linux host, installing a web server and an application server, deploying the code, and accessing the application via the host’s IP address.

Knowledge Points List

Development

View layer technologies – HTML, CSS, JS, AJAX, Tiles, Velocity, FreeMarker

Persistence layer technologies – MyBatis, Hibernate

Spring, Spring MVC

Project build tool – Maven

Logging – Log4j

Version control – Git

Database Technologies

SQL statements

Parameter tuning

Operating System

Proficient with a Linux distribution, its principles, and shell commands

Server Technologies

Understanding and using an application server (Tomcat)

Understanding and using a web server (Nginx)

Additional Topics

Cache Technologies

Understanding and using a cache system (Redis, Memcache, EhCache)

Non‑Relational Databases

Understanding and using a NoSQL database (MongoDB)

Middleware

JMS – ActiveMQ, Kafka

RPC – Dubbo

Design Patterns

Familiarity with major design patterns

Networking

Understanding a network framework (Netty)

Familiarity with HTTP and TCP protocols

Java Virtual Machine

Understanding JVM runtime principles and memory layout

JVM parameter tuning