In my search for information about what a web.xml exactly is and does, I ran across a video series on YouTube of Dr. Jules White who created over 70 videos explaining the basics and advanced topics of creating web services for mobile applications. The videos are roughly between 5 and 15 minutes long, so they are ideal for in-between watching, without sacrificing in content. You can binge them too, of course.

What I found most pleasing is that his presentation style is very informative and professional. There are no awkward pauses or anything else that would make me cringe. It’s very pleasant to watch and there’s a lot of good information in it, even for someone that already has a background in building web applications.

I created this list of links to all the individual videos because wanted to have more structure and information than a YouTube Playlist can provide in case I want to go back and watch something particular. Additionally, there’s a little sorting and numbering bug in the YouTube Playlist 😉

So, here you (or I) go.

Section 1: Communication Protocols

Module 1: HTTP

1. Introduction
2. What are Communication Protocols?
3. Intro to HTTP
4. Why HTTP?
5. What is a Cloud Service?
6. HTTP Request Methods
7. HTTP Request Anatomy
8. URLs & Query Parameters
9. Mime Types & Content Type Headers
10. Part 10: Request Body Encoding
11. HTTP Response Anatomy
12. HTTP Response Codes
13. Cookies

Module 2: Building Cloud Services on HTTP

1. Building Cloud Services on HTTP
2. Protocol Layering & HTTP Design Methodologies
3. What is REST?
4. HTTP Polling
5. Push Messaging

Section 2: Java Web Application

Module 1: Servlets

1. What are Servlets?
2. Routing & web.xml
3. A First cloud Service with a Servlet
4. Video Servlet Code Walkthrough
5. Video Servlet Test Code Walkthrough
6. Securely Handling Client Data & Avoiding Injection Attacks

Module 2: Spring as a Servlet

1. Intro to Java Annotations
2. HTTP to Object Marshalling
3. Intro to JSON
4. The Spring Dispatcher Servlet & Controller Abstraction
5. Intro to Spring Controllers
6. Accepting Client Data with RequestParam Annotations
7. Accepting Data with PathVar Annotations
8. Accepting Client Data with Request Body Annotations & JSON
9. Handling Multipart Data
10. Part 10: Generating Responses with the ResponseBody Annotation
11. Custom Marshalling with Jackson Annotations
12. Spring Boot & Application Structure
13. Spring Controller Code Walkthrough

Module 3: Retrofit

1. Introduction to Retrofit
2. Retrofit Client Code Walkthrough

Module 4: Spring DI Container

1. Spring Dependency Injection & Auto Wiring
2. Spring Configuration Annotations
3. Spring Dependency Injection Code Walkthrough

Section 3: Object Relation Mappers (ORMs)

Module 1: Available ORMs

1. Object to Database Mapping
2. The Java Persistence API
3. Spring Repositories
4. Understanding SQL Injection Attacks
5. Spring Data Code Walkthrough

Module 2: Spring Data REST

1. Spring Data REST
2. Spring Data REST Code Walkthrough

Section 4: Authentication & Authorization

Module 1: Security

1. Man in the Middle Attacks & Public Key Infrastructure
2. HTTPS

Module 2: Spring Security Framework

1. Sessions
2. Understanding Session Security
3. Spring Security Overview
4. Building a Custom UserDetailsService
5. Spring Security Method Annotations
6. Accessing User Accounts when Handling Requests

Module 3: OAuth 2.0

1. Stateful Sessions with Cookies & Why they aren’t Ideal for Mobile
2. Intro to OAuth 2.0
3. OAuth 2.0 & the Password Grant Flow
4. Using Tokens for Resource Access
5. Spring Security OAuth 2.0

Section 5: Deployment & Performance

Module 1: Scaling

1. Horizontal Scaling
2. Load Balancing Stateless vs. Stateful Applications
3. Auto-scaling
4. IaaS vs. PaaS
5. Offloading to Cloud Provider Services

Module 2: Optimization

1. NoSQL Databases
2. Optimizing for Query Patterns
3. Optimizing for Reads vs. Writes
4. Write Contention & Sharding

Module 3: Deployment

1. Packaging Applications into WAR Files

Outro

Behind the Scenes: Building a Low-cost Lightboard for Video Lectures