Maybe ... but I was using Zope and Plone in the late '90s, so there were definitely higher-level tools for web development then. We were also writing Java servlets in '98 or '99 and when I switched companies in '01, we were already using JSPs.
Not extremely much - but there are considerable changes that any up-to-date Java developer should know, specifically referring to Java 6 and 7. There's also a bit of a mindset change from a 90s Java developer to a "2013" Java developer, such as a desktop-centric approach to a stateless web app approach.
It is not something the author should care about, because it's very new with uncertain future. Most likely he will find a job on some typical Java codebase(standard approach to concurrency problems).
Very true ... JavaEE is dramatically different that J2EE. The emphasis on POJOs and inclusion of a CDI system allows the same functionality with dramatically less code.
