Learn Java for Web Development

CHAPTER 1: Introducing Java Web Development 41

Unlike SOAP, REST does the following:

   Identifies a resource as a URI

   Uses a well-defined set of HTTP methods to access the resource

   Works with multiple representation formats of a resource

Semantic Web (Web 3.0)

Web 2.0 began to take shape in 2004. It was pioneered by Google and followed by social
applications such as video sharing, social networking, microblogging, photo sharing, Wikipedia,
and virtual worlds such as Second Life. Mashups played a major role in the evolution of social
applications and Web 2.0.

The term Semantic Web refers to the W3C’s vision of the Web of linked data. The Semantic Web
can be viewed as a set of standards that allow machines to understand the meaning of information
on the Web. The Web as it is today constitutes data that has no meaning in itself, and the meaning
has to be constituted manually after gathering the data from the Web. Semantic Web technologies
enable you to create data stores on the Web, build vocabularies, and write rules for handling data.
Linked data are empowered by technologies such as RDF,^31 SPARQL,^32 and OWL.^33 The Semantic
Web is the future of the Web and is a subject of ongoing research. I recommend Aaron Swartz’s
A Programmable Web: An Unfinished Work^34 as an excellent resource on the Semantic Web. You can
also follow the latest news on the Semantic Web.

Summary

This chapter introduced the Java language and then took you on a whirlwind tour through the Java
landscape. The diverse landscape of the Java world consists of several web frameworks (such as
Struts 2, Spring Web MVC, JSF 2, Grails 2 and Play 2) that make development much easier; thus,
as a Java web developer, you need to be familiar with these web frameworks. Modern Java is
more than just a language; it is now a fully optimized platform for several other industry-strength
languages such as Groovy, Clojure, and Scala. All these languages, especially Groovy, have a close
association with Java, and you will come across web applications before long where Java and these
alternative JVM languages will work in tandem.

The subsequent chapters will address all these needs of a modern Java web developer. Specifically,
in the next chapter, you will create a Hello World web application that utilizes the basic building
blocks of a web application, namely, servlets and Java Server Pages. From there, you will then
transform the stand-alone application into your first full-blown web application: a bookstore
application using servlets and JSP.

(^31) http://www.w3.org/RDF/
(^32) http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/
(^33) http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-features/
(^34) http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/pdf/10.2200/S00481ED1V01Y201302WBE005