I am currently working on my own Java web app (to be shown in interview to get a Java job). So I've not worked on Java in professional environment, so no guidance. I have database, entity classes, JPA relationships. Use cases are like, user has albums, album has pics, user has locations, location has co-ordinates etc. I used List (ArrayList) everywhere. I can do anything with List and DB, get some entry, find etc. For example, I will keep the list of users in List, then use queries to get some entry (why would I keep them in Map with id/email as key?). I know very well the working and features, implementing classes of Map, Set. I can use them for solving some algorithm, processing some data etc. In interviews, I get asked have you worked with these, where have you used them etc. So, Please tell me cases where they should be used (DB or any popular real use case).