The J2EE 1.4 Tutorial is a guide to developing enterprise applications for the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) version 1.4. Here we cover all the things you need to know to make the best use of this tutorial.

Who Should Use This Tutorial

This tutorial is intended for programmers who are interested in developing and deploying J2EE 1.4 applications on the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.1 2005Q2 UR2.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with this tutorial you should have a good knowledge of the Java programming language. A good way to get to that point is to work through all the basic and some of the specialized trails in The Java Tutorial, Mary Campione et al., (Addison-Wesley, 2000). In particular, you should be familiar with relational database and security features described in the trails listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Prerequisite Trails in The Java Tutorial 

Trail	URL
JDBC	http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/jdbc
Security	http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/security1.2

How to Read This Tutorial

The J2EE 1.4 platform is quite large, and this tutorial reflects this. However, you don't have to digest everything in it at once.

This tutorial opens with three introductory chapters, which you should read before proceeding to any specific technology area. Chapter 1 covers the J2EE 1.4 platform architecture and APIs along with the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.1 2005Q2 UR2. Chapters 2 and 3 cover XML basics and getting started with web applications.

When you have digested the basics, you can delve into one or more of the four main technology areas listed next. Because there are dependencies between some of the chapters, Figure 1 contains a roadmap for navigating through the tutorial.