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I got to tell you its probably not java more the actual application server and/or the application. We use ATG Dynamo, and for that we get what we pay for: More than 4000 concurrent users ( active sessions ) per Dynamo instance with out any problems). Although with Version 6, they've decided to go all J2EE Buzzword compliant and complicated the entire setup.

They need to know what works, and what works now, and what will continue to work in the future.

I wish I were joking, but this really does seem to be the way it is at all too many places, not that I would have any direct experience with THAT *cough*ATGDynamo*cough*.

It all depends.

Web Developer and Web Designer are two completely different things.

If you want to work at a small company, and develop from scratch, learn Perl, PHP, and PostgreSQL. These seem to be the standards. They work well (I have built several sites with PHP/PgSQL), and are pretty easy to learn, plus they are pretty good under heavy loads.

If you want to work for a larger company with more divisions than Einstein, you will need to know Java. SQL of some sort. That's about it.

I wouldn't even bother 'learning' ASP, because truth is truth, it's ridiculously simple, and can be learned in a weekend(besides, it's microsoft!!)

Look at the large sites out there: IBM, Target, and Bluelight.com. They all use J2EE compliant Application servers.

Look at some of these: Art Technology Group's Dynamo, Blue Martini, BEA's WebLogic, and IBM's WebSphere.

Some of these guys even have demo downloads, so you can see what you might be working with. Basically, learn the basics(HTML, CSS, Javascript), learn a programming language(C, C++, Perl, Java) and then start playing with the combination. Good luck, and have fun!!

...a content management system (CMS).

I work in the CMS group at a large tech company. (Key word: large.) We use ATG and Documentum to form ours, but there are many others depending on your needs... Interwoven, CVS, etc.

Here are the major features you should have in this system:

• Easy management of content by non-technical people (yes, this wasn't one of your original goals, but if you're going to work on a content management system, do it right and enable forms-based publishing so not everyone publishing to your site has to know HTML/scripting.)
• Version control, which CVS covers. Look at Documentum for more of this type of stuff.
• Instant publishing so people can push content NOW and dated publishing so that people can push press releases out on Friday at 8AM without actually having to touch the system on Friday.
• A large database on the backend that can handle all of these features, and at least two frontend servers: one for staging and one for released content.

This may sound like major overkill, but trust me, it's not. Put it this way: if you implement a solution using CVS (command-line tools) and rsync, you've just created a barrier to entry for publishing on your site. You want the marketing people to be able to push their cute little Flash/PPT/PDF presentations out NOW without having to log into a command-line system, and you want those same marketing people to do that without having to know anything besides Flash/PPT/PDF. You want publishing on your site to be easy and straightforward so that you, the sysadmin, can focus on the backend stuff without having to deal with marketing whining that they can't seem to get their new PDF on the site.

Spend the extra money and go with a content management system from the companies that do this for a living, and then you can rest easy and do the things you really want to do in your job while letting the website content manage itself.

ATG's Dynamo is becoming increasingly popular for web development. It would have been interesting to see how their .jhtml/Dynamo Servlet concept rates compared to the other technologies.

AMZN is not the only one doing this. Personally, I do not have a problem with it -- done in the bricks and mortar world more than most people realize. However, I am interested in the tech. NetPerceptions is arguably the market leader with their GroupLens technology. ZDNet has a good explanation/review of this technology and here is an ABCNews video (realvideo) reporting the technology. Essentially the application learns your likes/dislikes of products/services (my profile) so that products/services based on these likes/dislikes are recommended to you. Moreover, and this is the part I find fascinating, information is pulled from demographic data/others who have similar likes/dislikes of the same products/services I purchase and very different products/services are recommended. For instance, maybe The Godfather is my favorite movie and, therefore, there is a 90% likelihood that I would like cigars. The site would actively present the sale of cigars to me.
AMZN actively pricing its product based on a specific user and his/her profile is part of this technology --- your profile also dictates prices (higher or lower). Incidentially, other companies with such technology/recommendation engines include: BroadVision, Art Technology Group (ATG), Vignette...

And will there be any problem with the name Dynamo since it is already the name of an app server by ATG?

shameless plug:
If you are looking to build high volume dynamic site you need to look at ATG. The Dynamo app server is widely regarded as a great!. Sony's The Station is one of the a very high volume dynamic sites that use Dynamo.

shameless plug:
If you are looking to build high volume dynamic site you need to look at ATG. The Dynamo app server is widely regarded as a great!. Sony's The Station is one of the a very high volume dynamic sites that use Dynamo.

http://www.atg.com/c ustomers/driven_by_dynamo/driven_main.html

Dynamo is just an app server, so you can say that the database and the web server is not Java. However, all page generation is done by the product using JavaBeans and JSP. A partial list of their customers is linked above, and it includes BMG, AT&T Customer Service, JCrew, and Sony Online Entertainment.

This is just one product that allows Java to be used for page generation -- take a look around, and you'll find that there are literally dozens. And before you say you meant a custom solution utilizing Java, no major company that I know of wants to build their own app server -- the investment would be huge with no real benefit. Yes, Yahoo and eBay do use custom solutions, but eBay is having all kinds of problems and many of Yahoo's services are now delivered via packaged solutions.

If you're looking for a good use for Java on the web, take a look at Art Technology Group's Dynamo Application Server, written entirely in Java. It's a truely excellent application server. We've been using it for about 6 months and we're very happy with it. It powers some real high end sites too, like Sony and even Sun and it runs on Linux too.