what to use in developing a java-based web application?

If you're just starting out just use the basic stack:

• Servlets for server side processing
• JSPs for views (Best practice is you only use JSPs for presentation. Use servlets for business logic, persistence, etc. Look for "RequestDispatcher MVC")
• JDBC with MySQL for persistence.
• Tomcat

As for frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, etc, they are great to learn and use but I think you should start with the basics to understand why you need those frameworks and how to use them properly.

Finally, to get you started, grab a copy of HeadFirst Servlets and JSP.

Your starting out and I guess this is just a class project.

Use Netbeans.

It has very good getting started tutorials. To get you up and running at no time.

just take a cue from datenshi's answer.

PS: I know Netbeans is an IDE, what I'm saying is that if you want to finish something fast and you don't know java/web development for java well, Netbeans has a lot of starter projects and very nice tutorials to help a newbie get by.

Given that it's a class project means that you won't have time to study better technologies out there like Spring. But then again, it also means that you could get away with crappy vanilla JSP.

That said. you're pretty much limited to:

• JSP - use it like you would use PHP (disclaimer: this practice is really bad outside this context :p)
• HSQLDB or SQLite for the database
• JPA or (cringe) JDBC to access the database
• GlassFish or Tomcat as the server

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