What you want to have to develop Java

Recently a user asked what they would need to know to develop a “small web application” using Java, including a database. This is not a good question, really, but IRC user surial gave a lot of relevant information that’s worth preserving and adding to. This is not what surial said – if you’re interested in the actual content, see the channel logs – but this is a paraphrase that attempts to build on surial’s...