WebLogic/WebSphere newbie Question.

First Weblogic and Websphere are compatitor products, both are J2EE certified Application Servers that implements and comply with Sun J2EE specifications, you should start learning about the specifications from
http://java.sun.com/j2ee/index.jsp

and then decide which way u will go websphere or weblogic

Also, in case you're interested in an open source implementation of J2EE, you can check out JBoss. Not as robust in terms of managability (resource management, clustering, etc.), but a very good open source alternative.

We use Weblogic here and are very happy with it. If I was just starting out, however, I might consider JBoss as a viable alternative.

Weblogic is a product made by BEA, which WebSphere is an IBM product.
They are mainly the same on the surface (though the vendors will try to convince you otherwise). The main difference starts emerging when you take Total Cost of Ownership, Integration, etc into the picture.

BEA Weblogic - http://www.bea.com/framework.jsp?CNT=index.htm&FP=/content/products/server
IBM WebSphere - http://www-306.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/express/

Had to log off earlier to go to a meeting; here are some WebLogic tutorial/primer resources:

BEA's WebLogic Online Workshop Tutorials
http://e-docs.bea.com/workshop/docs81/doc/en/core/index.html
(Note:  BEA lets you download their entire WebLogic package for free,
           as long as you're intending it for learning and development,
           and not to produce commercially available software)

WebLogic 6.1 Primer
http://www.skywayradio.com/tech/wls/

Introduction To Enterprise Java Bean(EJB) (Online WebLogic Tutorial)
http://www.roseindia.net/javabeans/javabeans.shtml

And here's for WebSphere:

Introduction to Servlets and IBM WebSphere Application Server (Free Tutorial)
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/tutorial.html

IBM InfoCenter 4.0 Tutorials Suite
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/doc/v40/ae/infocenter/index.html
(Select the Application Server AE link; a Tutorials section will be listed on the right.)

<After another intermission for yet more meetings ... lord help me. ;) >

And finally, you asked about WebLogic versus WebSphere.  Again, at heart these are different vendors' implementations of a Java Application Server ... the piece of the distributed architecture that lets the remote client portion of the application communicate with the server portion of the application (and vice-versa), invoking the various functions in one or the other no matter where they actually are, making it seem as if the entire application is in one place.  It's what makes the separates pieces of a distributed application work together.

Partisans for one or the other engage in religious wars over which is preferable over the other, but their approach and concepts are essentially the same, and they're pretty evenly matched.  For BEA's view of the comparison, keeping in mind the partison source, read their white paper at http://www.bea.com/framework.jsp?CNT=wp_abst00021.htm&FP=/content/news_events/white_papers.  IBM has it's own competing view of the situation (of course), but I haven't found their white paper/research.  If I run across it somewhere, I'll post it.

EE is getting too quick to clean up. I am going to split up points myself. Since RosieDark has given much more info, I am giving most of the point 150 goes to RosieDark and 75 is being divided between othes.

Scientist.