Look for web application container.  There are a few popular ones. I'm
personally familiar with Resin.

Also, it might be worth learning about Spring (to manage your
application) and Hibernate (for the database).

Apache is organization that creates products. I'm assuming you're
talking about Apache's httpd, which does not have built-in Java
capabilities.  You can use Resin in conjunction with Apache httpd by
using proxy-pass rewrite rules.  Resin can run on its own as a
web-server too.

Hope this helps,
Daniel.

Apache (the web server) does not have Java built in. Apache (the
foundation) has Apache-Tomcat which is a Servlet and JSP engine. It is
relatively simple to integrate the two via mod_proxy or mod_jk2. In both
cases Apache handles static content and transparently passes JSP and
Servlet calls to Tomcat.

You can use either Servlets or JSP to connect to resources on the server
including (obviously) your database. JSP can be thought of as html pages
with integrated java code while Servlets are more like applications that
easily handle GET, POST, etc. calls. While a Servlet can be built to
write to output and generate an html page, JSP is the better route for that.

Most db have ready made jdbc drivers to make that process relatively
painless as well.

It depends on what you mean by "interactive."

Click on links: use anything.

Forms and validation: many things do this, including I think Struts,
Java Server Faces, and Spring.

Web games, movies: get Flash.

A "J2EE Web container" is a program that sits behind a web server like
Apache and servers up Java to the web server.  J2EE is a little like PHP
or CGI -- it's an add-on that allows the web server to "speak" Java and
a few other J2EE dialects (JSPs for example).  Tomcat is probably the
best known J2EE container.  Glassfish and WebBoss (IBM) are also often used.

And you can add a large number of frameworks to the J2EE container.  And
I do mean large.  Struts, Java Server Faces, Spring, Hibernate, lots
lots more.  Check around the Apache website or Google.  You might also
try to ask more specific questions, some folks here might be able to
give you direct advice.

this book will walk you through Java Server Pages (JSP) ans Servlet
technology using Apache Tomcat server.
http://www.murach.com/books/jsp2/index.htm

On Mon, 12 May 2008 11:58:14 -0700, Knute Johnson
<nospam@rabbitbrush.frazmtn.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

The simplest is a pure Servlet with data files. You need almost no
extra knowledge than you already have.

Next most complex would be adding a real SQL database.  See
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/sql.html
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jdbc.html

Sun JDK comes with a simple small one called Derby.

One's often used for small projects include MySQL, Derby, PostGreSQL.
For others see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/sqlvendors.html

If you don't need the bullet proofness of transaction rollback,
recovery etc. you can use an "embedded" database, just a class you add
to your jar.  This simplifies deployment.  Very commonly your ISP will
have installed MySQL for you and a Servlet womb, most commonly TomCat.

See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/servletwomb.html

It gets tedious embedding reams of HTML inside Java strings, since
your outputs are complete HTML pages. So people have created scores of
rinky dink ways of embedding Java code in HTML that gets compiled into
the equivalent Java code dynmacially.  I find them all utterly
revolting.  You might have a look at some:
see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/framework.html
Sun's basic one is called JSP.
see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jsp.html

On Mon, 12 May 2008 11:58:14 -0700, Knute Johnson
<nospam@rabbitbrush.frazmtn.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

Apache is not a product, but a group of people who write code.  You
most likely want Apache Tomcat, a free, fairly simple Servlet womb. It
also serves vanilla HTML pages.

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/tomcat.html

Thanks very much for all the replies.  I'm trying to avoid writing the
form and database parts of this website with Perl.  I guess I'll have to
do more study.

Thanks,