Chapter 3: Designing an Example J2EE Application

Overview

In this chapter and the next , we explore the design and construction of a realistic example application. By realistic , we mean an example of sufficient size and complexity that key technology elements are useful and demonstrated in the example. The example will also help us explore decisions you must make during application development in WebLogic Server and will provide a context for sidebars and notes on best practices.

This chapter details the design of the presentation- tier layer of a fairly large and complex J2EE application. We ll cover different topics related to the example program throughout the book. For example, Chapter 4 walks through many of the presentation-tier components and discusses the techniques used in their construction. Chapter 7 details the design and development of the business-tier components and their interaction with the database.

We ll discuss issues and decisions in roughly the same order they were encountered during the actual design and development of the example application. We ll begin by examining the system requirements for the example application, a Web-based hotel reservation system.