Java Roadmap
Want to become a Java developer or take your Java skills to the next level? This roadmap highlights the must-have skills of every Java developer.
Java Roadmap
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In the context of Core Java, ‘core’ represents the basics. Therefore, core Java simply indicates the fundamentals of Java programming. To kick-start the journey as a Java developer, it is essential to be well-versed in the basic concepts.
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Courses:
Java Programming Masterclass covering Java 11 & Java 17
Java Programming for Complete Beginners
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A variable in Java is a container that stores data values during the execution of a Java program. Every variable is assigned a data type that specifies the type of value it holds.
A data type in Java specifies the different sizes and types of values that a variable can store. Primitive and non-primitive are two data types in Java.
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Basically, Java architecture consists of three primary components, namely Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Java Runtime Environment (JRE), and Java Development Kit (JDK).
JVM converts byte code into the machine code, JRE is an environment that makes Java programs run, and JDK is a suite of development tools.
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An operator in Java is a symbol that performs the operation on variables and their values. Six types of operators in Java include Arithmetic, Assignment, Relation, Unary, Logical and Bitwise.
A Java expression is a combination of variables, operators, literals, and method calls.
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In Java, a string is an object representing a sequence of characters. To perform various operations on a string, Java comes with a Java String class that provides a lot of string functions, including compare(), concatenate(), length(), substring(), and many more.
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Conditional statements, also known as decision-making statements, are used to execute a specific code block of a Java program based on certain conditions. Java supports five conditional statements, namely if, if-else, if-else-if, nested if, and switch-case.
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Loops are used to execute a certain block of code repeatedly for a finite number of times until the given condition evaluates to true. It eliminates the need to write a specific code block repetitively. Java supports the while loop, for loop, and do-while loop.
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The object-oriented programming paradigm aims to bind data and functions that work on the data together. It works on the basis of classes and objects, where a class is a collection of objects, and an object is any real-world entity. In addition, OOPs work on four basic concepts, namely Polymorphism, data abstraction, encapsulation, and inheritance.
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Multi-threading enables the execution of multiple threads at the same time. A thread in Java is a lightweight subprocess or the smallest unit of processing. It is used to achieve multitasking.
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IO stands for input and output. In Java, the input stream is used to read data from the source. Meanwhile, the output stream is intended for writing data to the destination. For any Java program to be able to read and write data, one has to import the java.io package.
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In Java, a Collection framework is a unified architecture for storing and manipulating a group or unit of objects. It primarily has interfaces and its implementation and algorithms.
Advance Java is a segment of Java programming that leverages the advanced version of Java for developing network-centric, enterprise, and web-based applications.
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JVM is an acronym for Java Virtual Machine. It is a virtual machine that lets computer systems execute Java programs and also programs written in different programming languages that are compiled to Java bytecode. In simple terms, JVM converts bytecode into machine code.
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Garbage collection (GC) in Java is the process in which Java programs automatically manage memory. A programmer does not have to take care of the objects that are no longer in use in a Java program. GC automatically destroys such objects and frees memory.
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A design pattern in Java is a well-structured and well-defined solution or best practice to solve a specific problem. Core Java has three broad categories of design patterns, namely creational, structural, and behavioral.
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Both these technologies are useful in web application development. A servlet is a Java class to extend the capabilities of servers, which host applications accessed using the request-response model.
JSP stands for Java Server Pages. It is analogous to the Servlet technology but is an extension of it. It provides more features, such as expression language, JSTL, and many more.
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Concurrent programming is a programming paradigm that enables two processes to run in an interleaved manner through context switching and complete in an overlapping time period. The system runs the process for a specific time, switches to another and runs it, again switches back to the first process, and completes both processes in this manner.
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Only learning the basics of Java is not enough to become a Java developer. It also needs to write an error-free, clean, and executable Java program, which is possible by learning and following essential coding tips and best practices.
IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment, which brings all the essential developer tools under a single GUI. It facilitates the development process since there is no need for developers to switch between different tools.
A plethora of Java IDEs is available out there that accelerate the development of Java applications.
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It is an IDE developed by JetBrains and comes in the Community edition available under the Apache License 2.0 and the Ultimate edition under the Trialware license. It maximizes the productivity of developers in creating software applications in Java, Kotlin, Groovy, and other JAR-based programming languages.
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Visual Studio Code or VS Code is a source code editor developed by Microsoft that provides IDE-like features. It is available under the MIT License. It helps developers to build and debug applications in various programming languages, including Java, Python, C, C++, JavaScript, and HTML/CSS.
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It is one of the most popular IDEs for Java development available under the Eclipse Public License. Besides Java, it supports other programming languages, including JavaScript, PHP, C, C++, Groovy, Perl, and Python, through plugins.
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Spring Tool Suite (STS) is an open-source and free Java IDE for developing Spring-based enterprise applications. The Eclipse IDE forms the basis for STS. Basically, it provides tools to work with your favorite coding environments, such as Eclipse, VS Code, or Theia IDE.
As any software developer, it is essential to possess a basic understanding of various operating systems, especially Windows, Linux, and macOS. Some essential OS concepts that every developer should know are threads, processes and process management, scheduling, and memory management.
Version control is a type of software that tracks and manages changes made to software code over time.
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Linux is one of the most popular, open-source, Unix-like operating systems for desktops, laptops, mobile phones, servers, and mainframes. It is based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel. In addition, it is used as a server OS, headless server OS, network OS, cloud OS, and software development OS.
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To make it easy for developers to navigate through the Linux system and execute tasks quickly and efficiently, it provides a galore of commands to execute on a command-line interface.
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Once you are done learning the basics of Linux and its various commands, the next step is to learn to install Java on Linux to start developing Java applications on the Linux system.
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It is a free and open-source distributed version control system, allowing developers to keep track of the changes made to their files over time. Also, it facilitates effective collaboration among developers working on the same project.
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It is the most popular software development platform leveraged by millions of companies and developers across the globe to develop and maintain their applications. Simply, it is a code hosting platform for version control and collaboration.
Once you learn the fundamentals of Java programming, now the time comes for building projects to implement what you have learned. Start developing small and simple projects that cover all essential Java concepts. Later, move on to developing complex applications.
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COURSES:
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A temperature converter should be able to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice-versa based on the user input. It requires you to create an interface containing an input field, a converter button, a screen displaying the output, and another button to change the conversion.
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A digital clock should display the time digitally, i.e., in numerals or other symbols, and not in hour and minute hands. To create this project in Java, you should possess the knowledge of designing UI so that your digital clock appears visually appealing.
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A student management system enables educational institutions to manage students, their data, and various other administrative manual tasks. It is an intermediate-level Java project, consisting of three separate interfaces for an administrator, students, and teachers.
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Game development is at the core of Java. To implement the Snake game effectively in Java, you need to use various basic concepts of Java and OOPs concepts. It is simply a 2D Snake game that we all would play in childhood.
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A customer relationship management (CSM) system is a complex and advanced-level Java project. It is a system that helps organizations manage the interactions with their customers using data analysis. Developing CRM requires you to have hands-on experience with the basics of Java concepts and IDEs.
A server is a computer hardware or software that offers functionality or services to other devices and programs called clients. Generally, it accepts and responds to the client’s requests. The two types of servers are the web server and application server.
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Apache Tomcat is a web server, which is an open-source implementation of Java Servlets, JavaServer Pages, Java Expression Language, and WebSocket technologies. It provides a pure Java HTTP web server environment for running Java code.
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KBOSS, currently known as WildFly, is an application server developed in Java and implements the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition specification. It is developed by RedHat for implementing Java applications and a wide variety of other software applications.
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Oracle WebLogic Server is a Java EE application server for developing and deploying Java enterprise applications It is developed by Oracle Corporation and offers the implementation of Java Enterprise Edition (EE) and Jakarta EE.
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WebSphere Application Server (WAS) is a web application server created by IBM. It is used to develop business applications through a website’s front-end using a set of Java-based tools.
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Jetty or Eclipse Jetty is a web server and servlet container that has its application in developing a variety of applications. In addition, it supports JAAS, JNDI, HTTP/2, WebSocket, and many other integrations. It can easily embed into devices, frameworks, application servers, and cloud services.
A database is an organized and well-structured collection of data stored and accessed electronically. It makes it easy to access and manipulate data. Various types of databases are available that are categorized based on the way the data is organized.
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SQL is an acronym for Structured Query Language. It is a standard query language for accessing and manipulating data from relational databases, which stored data in the form of rows and columns. All relational database management systems, including Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server use SQL as a standard query language.
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Courses:
The Complete SQL Bootcamp 2022: Go from Zero to Hero
The Ultimate MySQL Bootcamp: Go from SQL Beginner to Expert
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NoSQL is also called ‘not only SQL’. It is a type of database that provides a mechanism for storing and accessing data in a format other than the rows and columns. There are four types of NoSQL databases, namely document-oriented, key-value stores, column-oriented, and graph.
Courses:
NoSQL Databases For Beginners
Learn NoSQL Databases - Complete MongoDB Bootcamp 2022
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The full form of ORM is Object-Relational Mapping. It is a technique that lets you access and manipulates data from databases using an object-oriented programming paradigm. It created an object-oriented layer between the relational database and object-oriented programming languages.
Testing is the method to verify whether the application under development functions correctly and meets the specified requirements. It ensures that the application is defect-free and meets quality standards before making it live. There are different types of testing to verify the application's functionalities at different levels.
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Unit testing is a software testing method that intends to test each unit or component of an application individually. It ensures that every application component functions as expected. JUnit, TestNG, JWebUnit, and HTTPUnit are among the popular Java unit testing frameworks.
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Debugging is the act of running the code line by line using a tool to determine which line of code results in an error. It lets you determine the root cause of the error or where you made the programming mistake in your code. Generally, IDEs come with a built-in debugging tool.
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Integration testing is a software testing type that logically combines individually tested application components and tests them as a whole. It checks that there are no inconsistencies between the integrated components.
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Mockito is an open-source testing framework for testing Java applications. It performs unit testing on java applications. It enables the creation of test double objects in automated unit tests for test-driven and behavior-driven development.
Java comes with the logging feature that lets developers trace out the errors of the applications. It provides a logging API that has the ability to capture log files. Also, the logging feature provides the complete tracing information of an application.
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Log4j is a reliable and flexible logging framework developed in Java. It is a part of Apache logging services and is available under the Apache License 2.0. It lets developers track what happens in Java applications or online services.
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Logback is one of the most popular logging frameworks in Java and a successor to Log4j. It is more flexible, offers more configuration options, and is faster than Log4j. It comprises three modules, namely logback-core, logback-classic and logback-access.
Java frameworks act as a foundation for developing Java applications. It is a body or platform with pre-written code that facilitates the development of Java-based software applications and web applications. Though you may not require to have experience working with all Java frameworks, you will need to master the popular ones.
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Spring is an open-source, modular application framework and an inversion of control container for developing Java-based enterprise and web applications. It consists of various modules, including Spring MVC, Spring Core, Spring Security, and Spring ORM.
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Spring Boot is an open-source microservices-based Java-based web framework for creating standalone applications that just run without relying on an external web server. You just need to embed a web server, such as Tomcat or Netty, into your application at the time of initialization.
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Hibernate is an open-source and free object-relational mapping (ORM) framework for Java. It facilitates communication between relational database management systems (RDBMS) and the Java programming language.
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Jakarta Server Faces, formerly JavaServer Faces, is a specification for developing component-based user interfaces for web applications in Java. It is a part of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition. It is an MVC web framework that makes the creation of user interfaces easy for server-side Java applications.
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Micronaut is a framework for Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It is an open-source framework that lets developers build lightweight and modular software applications and microservices with small memory footprints and short startup times.
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Practice Makes a Man Perfect!
After learning all Java concepts and gaining an understanding of majorly used technologies in Java development, practicing is the only step you need to take to become a proficient Java developer. You can work on multiple projects and gain hands-on experience working with Java.
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