Lisa Austin wrote:Something which I feel is escaping me about progress in learning Java is I guess the stuff surrounding it. I'm being given a great opportunity to get into development and I've been working to learn java but there are pieces around it that I do not know how to learn.
As it seems you're finding out, it's often a case of running into it on the job. Different jobs and different companies will have different "stacks" (groups or technologies) that you will need.
When to use java code vs something else? I needed to add a session time out to an application using spring. I figured to make changes in the application.yml file but I could have done it with application class file as well. I assume if they use spring then you use use spring over java ?
Spring is a framework (a technology that helps you build something). It's generally better to use a config file than change code.
Diving to an already existing project for example. Without asking someone, how do I know if the project is a maven or gradle or something else? Is it simply whether you see a gradle.build file vs. pom ?
You've got it: a Maven project will have a pom.xml file in the root of the project directory, and a Gradle project will have a gradle.build file.
Is there a reason to use IntelliJ over Eclipse? Another project I was just moved to, instructed me to use IntelliJ where I've been comfortable using Eclipse.
This is usually company policy -- whether to use a certain
IDE. It makes sense for all developers to use the same one. Then you can pass configurations and such between then. It's mostly a matter of taste.