Developing a Team collaboration/MIS web app

[ruds]

Hello,
I want to develop a team collaboration /MIS system for my
department.Previously I have used JSP for this, but I want to add more
features and change the look and feel of the current system.For the
backend I'll be using MySQL and server is Linux.
Which technology will be the best for this? JSP, JSF, JavaFx, or
something else?
Please tell me as I'm very confused.
I know JSP but others I will have to learn, so which will have a low
learning curve? Also, I will be working on this single handedly - from
concept to design to programming.

 

[Lew]

I want to develop a team collaboration /MIS system for my
department.Previously I have used JSP for this, but I want to add more
features and change the look and feel of the current system.For the
backend I'll be using MySQL and server is Linux.
Which technology will be the best for this? JSP, JSF, JavaFx, or
something else?
Please tell me as I'm very confused.
I know JSP but others I will have to learn, so which will have a low
learning curve? Also, I will be working on this single handedly - from
concept to design to programming.

JavaFx is rather different from the other things you mentioned. Have you looked over
what each of these things is, first?

Which tech you use depends on many things, most of which you haven't mentioned here.
For example, what look and feel do you want, how does it differ from what you've got now,
and why do you want to change it? What are the functional and UI goals of your next phase?

No wonder you're confused if you haven't planned any features yet.

Unless your new stuff has a real need for things that JSP cannot handle, there's little
technical reason to leave it.

As for "low learning curve", nothing really has a low enough learning curve to layer onto
a project deadline unless you are particularly adept at using unfamiliar tech, as some are.

Your learning curve is almost entirely independent of what you're learning, and almost
entirely dependent on how good you are now. Without seeing your current JSP code, I
cannot tell you how bad your learning curve will be. You say you "know" JSP. Really?

Really?

Many people mean radically different things by a statement like, "I know JSP." For example,
do you ever put raw Java source into a JSP (as between "<% ... %>")? If so, you don't know JSP.

How do you ensure that an EL expression like "#{foo}" refers to something in page scope?

Do you use EL?

How's your XML? JSF is a great technology, really good for making slick, responsive web
apps, but its programming model is rather different from what you're used to with JSP.
(It's more similar to Swing, if you ask me.) It works with JSP, but the modern way is with
XHTML. It's better that way, I think.

 

[Lew]

I want to develop a team collaboration /MIS system for my
department.Previously I have used JSP for this, but I want to add more
features and change the look and feel of the current system.For the
backend I'll be using MySQL and server is Linux.
Which technology will be the best for this? JSP, JSF, JavaFx, or
something else?
Please tell me as I'm very confused.
I know JSP but others I will have to learn, so which will have a low
learning curve? Also, I will be working on this single handedly - from
concept to design to programming.

Your learning curve depends on you, not the tech you're learning. If you actually do
"know JSP" as you claim, it could be short, but a lot of people mean something different
by such a phrase than actual knowledge.

Is there scriptlet in your JSPs? Do you use EL? How would you ensure that a variable like
"#{foo}" comes from page scope?

It also depends on your requirements. *How* do you plan to change the look and feel?
*What* new features will you add? Why isn't JSP good enough to support those?

If you haven't planned out specifically what you're going to do, no wonder you're confused.
Clarity stems from how well you envision your goals. It may well be that you don't even
need to use new tech, nor risk the project for your desire to learn on your client's dime.

That said, JSF is a marvelous way to make snappy, slick Web apps, How's your XML? JSF
works well with JSP, but the modern and better way is with XHTML.

Show us how well you "know" JSP and I'll give you a better read on your likely learning curves.

And JavaFX? Huh? Why did you include that in the mix?

While we're asking questions, how much research did you do into the technologies you
mentioned before you posted here?

 

[markspace]

Hello,
I want to develop a team collaboration /MIS system for my
department.Previously I have used JSP for this, but I want to add more
features and change the look and feel of the current system.For the
backend I'll be using MySQL and server is Linux.
Which technology will be the best for this? JSP, JSF, JavaFx, or
something else?
Please tell me as I'm very confused.
I know JSP but others I will have to learn, so which will have a low
learning curve? Also, I will be working on this single handedly - from
concept to design to programming.

I think for any advice, we'd need your requirements. What is "team
collaboration?" A simple feature list will be needed to start with.
Some more complex work flow would help if you've thought that far ahead.
Outputs like reports, summary screens, search, etc. too.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I want to develop a team collaboration /MIS system for my
department.Previously I have used JSP for this, but I want to add more
features and change the look and feel of the current system.For the
backend I'll be using MySQL and server is Linux.
Which technology will be the best for this? JSP, JSF, JavaFx, or
something else?
Please tell me as I'm very confused.
I know JSP but others I will have to learn, so which will have a low
learning curve? Also, I will be working on this single handedly - from
concept to design to programming.

If you want it to be a web app and you want to use Java, then
the standard solutions would be:
* JSF with JSP for view
* JSF with Facelets for view
but there are also some alternatives:
* Wicket
* Vaadin
etc.

JavaFX will be for either applets or desktop app.

Arne

 

[ruds]

My current web app has very simple and basic UI(tables, etc..), no
dynamic sorting of columns, no dynamic hiding of columns. In short a
very simpkle site in JSP ( as I was a beginner and it does have Java
soruce in the <%...%> tags) which has basic search, addition on data,
retrival from DB acoording to access rights. And It is now 3 yrs old.
So, I want to change the look and feel of the system which also has
some Summary in graphs, etc. In short a more sophisticated web-site
than my current one.
Ok, to start with requirements, here are a few:
1. custom errror messages
2. dynamic tables(sorting, hide columns, unhide colums, etc)
3. Search (basic and advanced)
4. I walso want some functionality like a disscussion forum. In my
case we have other departments putting requests for CAE Analysis in
the system, I want each of the request to have comments/disscussion/
attachments on the same page by different users. This is the major
change that I want to implement in the new system. Any free software
for this is available?

As, I am doing this alone and have no other guidance, I might be
asking the very basic questions which might be very easy for others.
Please do understand and guide me.

Ruds

 

[markspace]

As, I am doing this alone and have no other guidance, I might be
asking the very basic questions which might be very easy for others.
Please do understand and guide me.

So your project basically has no requirements except what you want to
do. I'd still attempt to collect some ideas from your team. Talk to
some folks over lunch about what they'd like to see in the new system.
If you can get some people excited about the project, you might get
extra time, or resources, or accolades. This is all just basic
workplace skills here.

Assuming you want to keep Java, I'd recommend looking into a full JEE
container. The latest EJB 3.0 stuff is easier to program that a bare
Tomcat container. It's a bit more to learn, but faster once you get the
hang of it. The book Core JSF 2.0 helped me a lot (there's a lot of bad
books out there too; Core JSF isn't one of them).

<http://horstmann.com/corejsf/>

I don't know of anything like a website bbs/forum for Java off-hand.
I'm sure there's some out there, but Java isn't a single product like
Drupal or something where they concentrate on pre-built modules.
There's a few CMSs for JEE, but they tend to be heavy-weight things that
assume a considerable time investment to learn. I think it would
actually be faster to write your own simple bbs. It's basically one
table and a couple of views. Of course, if you need many features,
finding something appropriate and adapting it becomes more worth the
time spent. (There's that whole "it depends on features" thing again.)

There's some good open source here you can look through, and of course
there's Google too. Good luck.

<http://java-source.net/>

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

My current web app has very simple and basic UI(tables, etc..), no
dynamic sorting of columns, no dynamic hiding of columns. In short a
very simpkle site in JSP ( as I was a beginner and it does have Java
soruce in the<%...%> tags) which has basic search, addition on data,
retrival from DB acoording to access rights. And It is now 3 yrs old.
So, I want to change the look and feel of the system which also has
some Summary in graphs, etc. In short a more sophisticated web-site
than my current one.
Ok, to start with requirements, here are a few:
1. custom errror messages
2. dynamic tables(sorting, hide columns, unhide colums, etc)
3. Search (basic and advanced)
4. I walso want some functionality like a disscussion forum. In my
case we have other departments putting requests for CAE Analysis in
the system, I want each of the request to have comments/disscussion/
attachments on the same page by different users. This is the major
change that I want to implement in the new system. Any free software
for this is available?

If you go with JSF and a rich component library like RichFaces,
then a lot of theses things would become a lot easier to
implement.

The problem is that it also comes with a learning curve.

But if you have the time to learn, then I think you would
be much better off going that route.

Arne

 

[ruds]

When you say that it's a very simple site "in JSP", do you mean it
consists _only_ of JSPs, with all the business logic and database
access done in scriptlets and tags in the JSPs and without any
other java code? No controllers or Java datamodel?

Yes, you can say that. I had built it when I had just started my job
and still doing my mastrs degree. I tis built in JSP 1.0 or something.