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First off, this is for a semester long school project. We are allowed to use any web resources needed as long as we are not plagiarizing. We will not be taught how to do any part of the project by the professor (there is only a TA who apparently is learning this stuff for the first time as well).
My project is to essentially create a social networking site with many of the features Facebook has (including live chat with online friends). It will be a three-tiered web application requiring the use of Servlets/JSP, Apache Tomcat, and MySQL(along with a Java Swing database management program we create).
I have been reading Java Servlet Programming by Crawford and getting the basics down. Since I am familiar with SQL I've planned out what so far seems like a decent database design for a small scope social network site... obviously bound to change as I learn more. However, I have never even touched JSP/Servlets before and I have no idea how they work. I only know HTML, CSS, and Java.
From what I googled up so far I know I want to use a MVC style approach. I am familiar with the MVC design pattern from a small Objective-C program I wrote a few months ago. Each user needs to have a home page and a profile page. Obviously when a user views a friend's page the view will be different (ex: lack of "edit" buttons next to profile info). I'm not sure how it all fits together on a web platform, though.
Does a servlet instantiate a new and different model object for each user session login? I'm trying to wrap my head around how to design a profile system. If I logged on as Bop and went to site.com/Bop and then clicked on a friend profile link to site.com/Destructor how would the MVC work? How would the Tomcat server handle those URLs if I don't physically have those directories on the server (all profile info is in the DB - no pictures)?
I'd appreciate any resources that don't flat out write the application for me. I'm more interested in learning the nuances of design and how everything works together.
My project is to essentially create a social networking site with many of the features Facebook has (including live chat with online friends). It will be a three-tiered web application requiring the use of Servlets/JSP, Apache Tomcat, and MySQL(along with a Java Swing database management program we create).
I have been reading Java Servlet Programming by Crawford and getting the basics down. Since I am familiar with SQL I've planned out what so far seems like a decent database design for a small scope social network site... obviously bound to change as I learn more. However, I have never even touched JSP/Servlets before and I have no idea how they work. I only know HTML, CSS, and Java.
From what I googled up so far I know I want to use a MVC style approach. I am familiar with the MVC design pattern from a small Objective-C program I wrote a few months ago. Each user needs to have a home page and a profile page. Obviously when a user views a friend's page the view will be different (ex: lack of "edit" buttons next to profile info). I'm not sure how it all fits together on a web platform, though.
Does a servlet instantiate a new and different model object for each user session login? I'm trying to wrap my head around how to design a profile system. If I logged on as Bop and went to site.com/Bop and then clicked on a friend profile link to site.com/Destructor how would the MVC work? How would the Tomcat server handle those URLs if I don't physically have those directories on the server (all profile info is in the DB - no pictures)?
I'd appreciate any resources that don't flat out write the application for me. I'm more interested in learning the nuances of design and how everything works together.