Java webapp under development, which other languages are important?

Hello!

Currently I'm looking forward to create a Java webapp from scratch, throw it into the net and have a real webapp working, but I don't know if pure Java and Play Framework will be more than enough for a good looking website.

I mean, I can for sure make a site with pure Java and HTML, some CSS to make it look good and more or less decent but I think that it will not look good enough if compared to todays standards (real time username checking, instant message notifications, animations for buttons and all those things that make a website look pro).

So I would like to know, which are the technologies that I should learn in order to, after developing the basic functionality with Java, make the website evolve to the next level? I've been looking around about AJAX, JS, jQuery... which one is really worth learning? And also what about the learning curve (I've been using Java for 3 years now, since I started my degree?

I've been also investigating about the "realtime username checking" and I've found plenty of examples with PHP... I would like to hide from PHP, please, wouldn't like to use it even with a bridge!

Ed Herrero wrote:Currently I'm looking forward to create a Java webapp from scratch, throw it into the net and have a real webapp working, but I don't know if pure Java and Play Framework will be more than enough for a good looking website.

Not sure what you mean by "pure", but using the Play framework you still code your templates using HTML, CSS and JavaScript; just with markup to add the dynamic pieces. Just like JSP with different notation. For Play 1.x the templates use Groovy as a base language, for Play 2.x, Scala.

So I would like to know, which are the technologies that I should learn in order to, after developing the basic functionality with Java, make the website evolve to the next level? I've been looking around about AJAX, JS, jQuery... which one is really worth learning?

You will need to know JavaScript and Ajax for sure. No getting around it. jQuery has also pretty become a platform that most other frameworks rely upon.

And also what about the learning curve (I've been using Java for 3 years now, since I started my degree?

That depends completely on you.

I've been also investigating about the "realtime username checking" and I've found plenty of examples with PHP... I would like to hide from PHP, please, wouldn't like to use it even with a bridge!

PHP doesn't come into the picture at all when basing a web app on Java or a Java framework.