Is it a must to learn jsp and servlets before frameworks like spring ?

Hi Rajesh,

I can give you my story of how i tackled this and what i found useful and what i would change if i should do it again.

I didn't have any Java experience or other programming language skills when i started with Spring which obviously proved an issue. After playing around with Spring for some time and getting frustrated that i could not read the logic and code i took a video course on Java SE 8 which helped tremendously as i now could understand the basics of the language and begin to understand what Spring was doing on top. I then took some video courses on basic Spring (No MVC or other Spring projects) to understand dependency injection and in general what Spring is solving.
I found that when i was reading articles on Spring / Spring MVC they where filled with annotations - to make life easier for developers - but in my case it obfuscated what was actually going on because i didn't understand what those annotations where solving. Now i come to the part that is closest to answering your question :)

I went back and read a few books on general servlets, jsp, tomcat (containers) to get a better understanding of what the "inner workings" where as i felt that gave me a better understanding of what Spring was doing on top. I found it useful to have spend some time with servlets and JSP (and understanding stuff like Maven, Tomcat etc.) before again turning to Spring / Spring MVC.
I also deliberately avoided Spring Boot to start with. Once i had been through the process of wiring up beans myself for datasources, view resolvers etc. i could better understand and use Spring Boot (as i understood what it is solving and how - it is FILLED with annotations...) but i made the decision to learn regular Spring / Spring MVC for the same reason i learned some stuff on servelets, jsp and containers: i could better understand what Boot did on top of Spring.

So the short answer: i personally found it useful to at least know a little about the "old days" of Java without Spring.

I dont mind recommending the material (videos and books) i have used but unfortunately i didn't find Team Treehouse after i had gone through most of the Java / Spring material i used to learn so it is all external material to Team Treehouse.

I started out with learning Java, Spring / Spring MVC approximately 3 months ago so i am in no way an expert and my approach might be different from yours as i knew little to no Java when i began.

Hope it helps.

Hey Rasmus,

I am not sure either, if Team Treehouse would enjoy you posting the material you recommend in this forum, so would you mind sending me some links via E-Mail? (nfinity@gmail.com)

Thank you!