Beginning JavaServer Pages™

Chapter 26. Best Practices and Tools

Building reliable software is not easy. In the preceding chapters, you learned several techniques for developing Web applications, and best practices while using them. These techniques are important, but even more important is learning how to develop software well. This skill is applicable to all programming domains, whether you are developing Web applications or writing operating system code.

This chapter covers a range of topics, from development methodologies to tools used for Web development and best practices. It starts off by briefly explaining some of the popular development methodologies that are relevant today, and provides a tutorial introduction to tools that should be in every Web developer's tool box. Finally, the chapter summarizes the best practices that were used throughout the book. This is the last chapter prior to the project chapters, so it covers what you need to know, in addition to JSP programming, to be a professional Web developer.

This chapter contains the following important topics:

• Popular development methodologies

• A range of tools for development, version control, building and deployment, testing, and performance metrics for Web applications

• How to work with the CVS version control system

• How to write an Ant script to build and deploy Web applications

• How to use JUnit and HttpUnit for unit and regression testing

• The importance of coding standards and conventions, and some tools that can help enforce these standards

• Best practices ...