Back-end development is the heart of web development, where the logic and the actual working of the app are built. Many programming languages are used for back-end development and Java is one of the most popular options for that.
A variety of frameworks and tools are available in Java which makes it an amazing choice for back-end development. If you are a Java programmer who wants to know the scope of Java in web development, you have come to the right place.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps to become a back-end web developer using Java. Let’s dive right in.
JSP and Servlets
JSP (Java Server Pages) and Servlets are basically Java code that runs on the server. You can use JSP and Servlets together along with JDBC and a database to set up the back-end of a web application using Java.
JSP can be used to combine HTML and Java code to create the front-end pages of the website with both static and dynamic content. You can write the static content using HTML (or any other text-based format like XML, SVG, WML, etc.) and Java can be used for dynamic content in JSP documents.
JSP is pretty easy to code as it is writing Java in HTML without any complications. JSP acts as the view part for showing output in the MVC (Model View Controller) approach.
A servlet is java code. Servlets act as a middle layer between the data coming from the website users and the databases where the data is stored. Servlet handles HTTP requests (and other types of protocol requests) and returns the server responses to the front-end of the application. In terms of MVC, you can consider servlets as the controllers.
JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) is an API (application programming interface) used for database connectivity. JDBC provides ways to read, insert, update, or delete data from relational databases like MySQL.
So if you can learn how JSP, Servlets, and JDBC works, you can create web applications that can handle the back-end tasks.
If you want to learn how to create a complete web application using JSP, Servlets, and JDBC, you can check out this Udemy course by Chad Darby.
Spring Framework
Spring is a popular Java framework used for enterprise applications. Spring provides a well-defined MVC web development framework that can be used at the back-end.
Spring MVC
The Spring MVC provides all the features to build flexible and loosely coupled web applications. The MVC separates all the different layers of the web application to make development easy. The Spring MVC framework combines all the basic features of a core spring framework like dependency injection with the advantages of the MVC pattern.
The Spring framework makes the development of large applications easier with the help of its built-in tools. It provides fast and parallel development.
Spring Boot
In Spring MVC, when you build large applications, you need to integrate jar files and do a lot of configurations. Even though Spring is a great framework for developing web apps, some developers have created something called Spring Boot on top of Spring to simplify the development.
Spring Boot takes care of the configurations and dependency and gives a production-ready application. Hence, developers can focus more on coding rather than worrying about the configurations. It even provides a built-in server to help you run spring web application projects easily. Spring Boot is widely used to build microservices and Rest APIs. Spring Boot reduces the development time and enhances the productivity of back-end developers.
Hibernate
Hibernate is an ORM tool for Java applications that simplifies interaction with the database. ORM (Object Relational Mapping) is a technique that helps you do database operations using an object-oriented paradigm. With the help of Hibernate, you can map Java classes to database tables and even map Java data types to SQL data types.
Hibernate is the best ORM tool for Java development. It provides several features like automatic table creation, fast performance, database-independent querying, simplification of complex joins, statistics, and database status. This saves you a lot of time as you don’t need to manually create the database and tables. You focus on implementing the business logic.
Hibernate allows you to execute CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations without specifically writing SQL queries. Also, there is a Hibernate Query Language (HQL) that helps in writing object-oriented queries for advanced operations.
Hibernate has some similarities with JDBC, but there are some major differences. JDBC uses SQL and is database-dependent, whereas Hibernate uses HQL and is database-independent. You can use JDBC for simple applications, but Hibernate is preferred for complex applications.
If you want to learn the Spring framework, Spring Boot, and Hibernate framework in a single course, you can check out the Spring & Hibernate for Beginners course on Udemy by Chad Darby. This guy explains the concepts very clearly and hence, I think it will be a great course to master Java back-end development frameworks. Click here to check out the course content and sample videos.
Final Thoughts
We have come to the end of this article. Java is one of the most popular languages and it is not going anywhere soon. Java and its frameworks are used widely used in enterprises due to the amazing features they provide. Java web development can be a great skill that will help you make money.
If you want to become a Java back-end web developer, you can learn the technologies mentioned in this article. You can make use of the courses that I have mentioned to learn these technologies in the best possible way. You can also use other tutorials if you find any.
There are many other Java frameworks for web development, like Play framework, Grails, Struts, and many others. If you want to learn more about those other Java web frameworks, you can check out this article.
And, if you want to become a full-stack Java developer, check out this article.
I hope this article was helpful to you in understanding how to become a back-end developer using Java. Thanks for reading. Happy coding!
