Servlets & JSP -> Struts ---> JSF? ... or ?
First thing I want to do is apologize to the forum mods - I am pretty sure this is NOT the right forum to post this, but the Servlets forum doesn't seem to get too much traffic, this isn't a JSP question, and it's not an EE question either - I know this forum gets a lot of traffic and I trust that the mods will move it to a more correct forum if they want.
Been venturing further into learning Java server/web technologies (actually CSS, AJAX, JS classes, etc too - way too much to cram into my brain in just six months) as that's the direction most of my department is taking. Just finished a Learning Tree International course on Servlets, JSP and such. The course left off with just the tiniest bit of Struts and the instructor recommended that our next steps might be best be served by reading up on Hibernate and JSF, or similar.
I've been programming in Java for years, but I am very new to Java server programming. As others have mentioned before, the frameworks and new techniques of other sorts just keep on coming. I know quite a few of you here (most of you?) are experienced Java server side programmers. Would you be willing to suggest what you think is the most sensible and, I won't lie, the easiest path forward? Loaded question to be sure, since you don't know my companies plans ... well ... neither do I at this point. But whether I use my knowledge at work or for my own purposes, is there some consensus as to best approaches? Thanks and regards,
~Bill