What's your strategy for learning Java technologies?

Question

Or, in other words, how do YOU acquire knowledge that is necessary for implementing Java technologies?
After having spent one-and-a-half years developing an enterprise app, I've gained lots of knowledge about Java and some surface knowledge about its related technologies (JBoss, Hibernate, Ant, XDoclet, NetBeans and probably some others I can't think of at the moment).
I'm now realizing that -- although the standalone prototype version of my program is growing mature -- I've still got lots to learn for refactoring it to a web platform. For example, I 've done small test projects using Servlets, but haven't done any work with JSP (or HTML for that matter) yet.
Now, I'm sure I can learn JSP etc., but the questions I ask myself are: how long will it take?
It's a rhetorical question of course (I don't expect an answer from you, the reader) However, it's an important issue because the months or years I spend fumbling around learning these new technologies, are time I could otherwise spend on the business logic and functionality of my program.
So, how do you guys acquire knowledge of technologies? Official training perhaps? Or do you simply experiment until it works? Or do you rely on your company's knowledge base (e.g. someone in your company knows how it works)? Or do you get prototypes built from someone who already knows how it works?
I�m really curious about this and would appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks in advance,
P

Answer 1

Well, it seems like most of you simply read the
various texts and try the vendors' examples. I'm
surprised that no one mentioned ever having bought a
prototype application from the onset. "bought"? What's that mean? You don't buy prototypes. You download evaluation versions, maybe.
I try to find sample code and tweak it to see the effects. Otherwise, I start writing small sample code an build on that.
I consider myself a reasonably competent core Java
programmer, but I had serious difficulty configuring
and merging its related technologies. There were so
many disjointed pieces of instructional information
that the additional research time really hurt our
budget severely. Not an uncommon thing, I'm sure. There's a lot of stuff. But don't bother learning all of it. Not in detail, at least. It's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the names of packages/libraries and what they do. But only really learn what you need to learn for what you need to do. The next project you will probably need other things, so you learn them then.
bsampieri,
I've setup Tomcat and tried the examples--in fact, I
normally follow tutorials for all products I hope to
use. Problem is, the examples and tutorials never
address my specific needs. So, I usually inch toward
my goal by spending weeks or months in forums to
continue where the tutorials leave off. Anything complex is going to not be there.... the trick is to identify pieces that you can pull out to build more complex apps. And the fact that JSP/servlets have the issue of being compounded by all the HTML/CSS/JS and HTTP protocol ... I don't want to say limitiations, exactly... Well, it just makes things more complex and harder to know what you need.
Perhaps you guys are much faster and smarter than
I...or you have a much bigger budget :)Probably not... on either account.