MCA-207
Enterprise Computing with JAVA
Java on the server — servlets and sessions, JSP and Struts, Hibernate and object-relational mapping, and the Spring framework.
- Semester
- Semester 3
- Credits
- 3
- Scheme
- 3 lectures a week
- Contact hours
- 44 across four units
- Category
- Core Elective - II
What the paper is
Enterprise Computing with JAVA takes the language from MCA-109 and puts it behind a web server. It moves through the generations in the order they appeared: servlets, then JSP, then Struts, then Hibernate, then Spring — and each one exists because the previous one was painful in some specific way.
Keeping that history straight is the single most useful thing you can do with this paper. Servlets mix Java and HTML, so JSP inverts them; JSP has no structure, so Struts adds MVC; JDBC is repetitive, so Hibernate maps objects to rows; everything is tightly coupled, so Spring injects dependencies instead.
Units I and IV carry twelve hours each — servlets at one end, Spring at the other — and that is a fair guide to the marks. Spring Boot, Spring AOP and Spring Web in particular are the material with the most current value outside the exam.
What to concentrate on
- The servlet life cycle and the session tracking techniques (cookies, URL rewriting, hidden fields, the HttpSession API) are the most predictable questions in the paper. Learn the four techniques as a comparison with one advantage and one drawback each.
- For Hibernate, concentrate on why object-relational mapping exists — the impedance mismatch — and on the configuration, session management and HQL basics. A comparison of JDBC and Hibernate is a standing question.
- Dependency injection and inversion of control are the conceptual core of Unit IV. Be able to explain both with a small example; everything else in Spring hangs off them.
Syllabus, unit by unit
Summarised from the approved scheme. Hours are the contact hours the scheme allots, which is a fair guide to where the marks sit.
Unit I · J2EE and servlets
12 hours- Distributed web application multi-tier architecture, MVC architecture, HTTP basics
- Introduction to servlets and the servlet life cycle; problems with the CGI-Perl interface
- Generic and HTTP servlets, servlet configuration
- Session tracking techniques, servlet context and configuration
- Servlet listeners, filters and annotations
Unit II · JSP and Struts
10 hours- JSP directives, scripting elements, standard actions, implicit objects, design strategies
- Using JSP beans, expression language, JSP custom tags
- Introduction to Struts and its architecture
- Advantages and applications of Struts
Unit III · Hibernate and object-relational mapping
10 hours- Comparison between JDBC and Hibernate
- Principles of object-relational mapping
- Hibernate configuration, mapping and annotations
- Session management, searches and queries using HQL
- Transaction integration and demarcation
Unit IV · The Spring framework
12 hours- Configuring the Spring environment and the Spring architecture
- Dependency injection and inversion of control
- Spring Boot
- Using Hibernate with Spring
- Spring AOP and Spring Web
How it is examined
- Question 1 is compulsory, covers the whole syllabus, and is made of objective or short-answer questions. It carries 12 marks.
- The rest of the paper is four units matching the four above. Each unit sets two questions and you attempt one, so there are four more answers at 12 marks each.
- Examiners are asked to map every question to a course outcome using Bloom's taxonomy, which is why questions are phrased as “apply”, “analyse” or “evaluate” rather than only “explain”.
The pass mark is 40 out of 100 in every paper.
Learning objectives
- Dynamic web pages using servlets
- Session management
- Designing custom tags using JSP
- Data access, searches and queries using HQL
- Web application development using the Spring framework, and handling crosscutting concerns with Spring AOP
Assumed beforehand
- Core Java
Paired in the scheme with MCA-265 Lab based on Core Elective II.
Books it is taught from
- TB1John Hunt and Chris Loftus, “Guide to J2EE: Enterprise Java”, Springer Verlag, 1st edition, 2003
- TB2Govind Sesadri, “Enterprise Java Computing: Applications and Architectures”, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 1999
- TB3Jeff Linwood and Dave Minter, “Beginning Hibernate”, Apress, 2nd edition, 2010
- TB4Rod Johnson, “Professional Java Development with the Spring Framework”, John Wiley & Sons, 2nd edition, 2005
Notes for MCA-207
Lecture notes, question papers and assignments filed against MCA-207 are in the library. Everything there has been checked by a moderator before it appears, and an account is free — new ones are approved by hand, which is what keeps the shelf clean.