J2EE Application Development

If you are new to J2EE, starting a new project may be a difficult task. You do not know anything about where to start or what tool you need to use. You have to think of many things before you start writing the code for your project. It would become difficult for you to complete your project if you choose wrong tools especially when you are not familiar with them.

Version Control

Version control is important for the success for J2EE Developers of any J2ee development project and its importance increases as more developers join the project. It is always advisable to start using version control system before you write the first line of code when you initiate the project. There are several tools in the market related to version control. One such tool is Subversion. It is an extremely useful tool for Java development as it allows you to move items in the repository without losing the change history.

Generating code

You have to do a lot of code generation work in J2EE development projects. It comes up as a side effect of the flexibility of J2EE. You can reduce the amount of code work by using XDoclet, which is eminently suited to this task.

Build Tools

Ant is very popular build system among developers. There are some developers who prefer to use Maven or Make. While you need to follow the strict rules of Maven if you want to use its full potential, Make offers very limited scope for building more complex procedures that a J2EE project may require. In any case avoid using any build tool that is dependent on development environment.

Integrated Development Environment

A unique feature of Java development is that it does not need any specific development environment. For example, you need not buy an IDEA from a specific vendor because you may not even need this tool.

It always pays to allow the developers to use any tool they find useful as it will increase their productivity and efficiency. If you stick to one tool for a particular environment, it may affect the efficiency of the developers who may not be familiar with the tool set.

In fact there is no reason why you should insist upon using a single tool for your team as Java does not stipulate any technical requirement that necessitates single tool environment. It is no use stopping a person from using Notepad if he feels more comfortable with it.

Forcing him to use any other editor such as Eclipse may tell adversely upon his productivity. It does not, however, mean that you should not experiment with the new tools that you come across. If you find a new tool, which is free and has a demo version, download it and try it for some time. After all, the developers of new tools can expect to sell them only if they have something new and helpful to offer.