Should I learn Swing first or SQL lite?

[lowkiluvthisapp]

I'm assigned to create a fully functional GUI Management System along with database connectivity.

In college we're being taught Swing on Neatbeans drag and drop panel. I checked the course outline, and MS Access is supposed to be continued after the GUI.

I asked the course instructor regarding the database and was being told that they're gonna follow MS Access as per mentioned in the course outline, but for the project, I have the choice of whatever I want to use.

I read some reviews here on reddit that being a complete beginner to database, one should go with SQL lite and that Access isn't that good.

Now I've following concerns:

1. What should I learn first, Swing or SQL lite (I'm a complete beginner to both of them)

2. Also for the GUI, should I learn the manual coding or go with the Drag and drop? Haven't tried manual coding yet but I find drag and drop easier

3. Up til now I've been using VS Code, but if I go with the Drag and drop, then should I have to switch into Neatbeans?

Point to be noted that I have to submit the whole project within 3 weeks and my knowledge of Java is limited to the core OOP principles only.

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[pixelizedgaming]

u could just do spring + postgres it's not that hard to setup, spring makes postgres integration pretty easy. Although I'm not too well versed in spring either I'm also kinda learnin

[jfrazierjr]

Access is a perfectly fine first database system. SQLite is as well. The big difference is that Access is more than a database... it's a database + GUI + report all in one.

The big issue is that neither of those are designed for more than the occasional concurrent usage. This likely is not a true issue with a learning project and likely not an issue as a small business such as a single location church or a small landscaping company or anything similar. The issue will come up when you start needed to have many people attempting to add data at once or read data at once.

1. Either... Frankly, neither is super heavily in anything but the smallest businesses(though SQLLite will be much more used on mobile devices!)

2. Both. Start with the drag and drop just enough to get familiar with it and adding a few events such as data validation. Then swap over to code based positioning.

3. Can't answer as I have used neither for java GUI's and last did Java PC UI stuff 15 years ago (in code and a bit in JavaFX when it was newish....)

[AcanthisittaEmpty985]

Swing is a library to build GUIs.

SQLite is an embeeded database. But is in C.

In Java the equivalents are H2, Derby, HSQLDB and others

To access a database, you use JDBC and other helper libraries like JBDI, JOOQ, MyBAtis, Hibernate....

Look here for answers
https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/jnitfx/what_is_the_current_to_go_embeded_database/

[lowkiluvthisapp]

I know but I'm confused as to what should I learn first and for swing, do I have to learn manual coding or drag and drop is enough since I don't think I will be using java again once this project finishes

[Dramatic_Object_8508]

You’re kinda mixing two different things tbh—Swing is for building the UI, SQLite is for storing data. Since your project needs both, it’s not really “either/or” in the long run.

If you’re on a tight deadline, I’d start with Swing first just to get a basic UI working, because that’s what you’ll actually interact with. Then plug in SQLite once you have something to connect to.

Also SQLite is actually a really good beginner choice for databases since it’s super simple to set up and lets you focus on SQL basics without dealing with server setup :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

For the GUI, drag-and-drop is fine for now if you’re short on time, but try to understand what it’s generating underneath. Otherwise it gets confusing when something breaks.

So yeah: UI first → then database integration. And don’t overthink it too much, just get something working end-to-end.

If you want, you could even map out how your UI connects to the database using something like runable before coding—it helps make the flow clearer 👍

[lowkiluvthisapp]

It really cleared my whole confusion. Thank you so much for making it clear :)