Building J2EE Applications with the Rational Unified Process

Rating:
Summary: HOW to apply process and modeling to the J2EE platform
Review: Besides being well written, consise, and easy to understand I like this book because it fills a much needed gap. There are many books and websites that focus on implementing EJBs, Servlets, JSPs, and the like. The growing acceptance of RUP as a process framework is also reflected in a lot of books and magazine articles. And UML as the standard way to visualize software systems is commonly accepted.

But until now I haven't seen a book that combined the concepts of process, modeling, and platform architecture and described the implementation of a non-trivial application using industry best practices. "Building J2EE Applications with the Rational Unified Process" does this.

J2EE architects, developers and project managers will all get value out of this book because it sets the context for building enterprise class applications on the J2EE platform. Software development is still hard - we need to consider what we're building, how to capture and communicate that, how to structure it, and ultimately how to design and implement the system.

Combining discussions of the software lifecycle with J2EE implementation choices, the latest thoughts on design patterns, and building a J2EE system in a regular/repeatable way is not an easy task and I am happy to say that this book accomplishes the goal admirably.

Rating:
Summary: This is THE book for J2EE architects
Review: Get this right, this is NOT a 50-50 mix of J2EE development process and RUP, this is not for the ones doing BPR (Business Process Redesign) and book does not try to position itself as the ultimate book for RUP (I'm glad it doesn't).

This book let's you focus on only a small subset of RUP, a subset which is really relevant for developing the architecture of a J2EE application, it let's you use RUP as a tool (that's the whole point of RUP, it's a tool, not a goal in itself) to deliver your final deliverable, the software architecture document with other supporting documents.

If you are a J2EE Architect or a senior developer planning to make the move towards architect roles, this is the book for you, keep the 'J2EE Patterns' book (Deepak Alur, Dan Malks, John Crupi) by your side, and you're ready to go!

Rating:
Summary: For all J2EE Developers
Review: If you want one book that describes HOW to build J2EE applications successfully, then this is it. I've read a number of books that describe aspects of J2EE or UML and have always been left wanting. J2EE books describe technology, and UML books describe a standard notation for "drawing pictures". At last we now have a book (and an excellent book at that) that describes an actual PROCESS for building J2EE applications, and it doesn't disappoint.

After brief introductions to J2EE and the Rational Unified Process (RUP, which is pretty much a de-facto process standard for developing software) the reader is walked through the development of a fairly complex online auction application. I was pleased to see that the authors haven't taken the easy route of discussing a trivial application; the example used ensures that all of the "tricky" questions that would arise in a typical project are answered.

A chapter is dedicated to each of requirements, analysis, design and implementation. It was great to see the use of the Sun J2EE patterns throughout. I was also pleased to see some discussion of user-experience modeling, something that I've been struggling with in real life.

Even though there is a lot of information to absorb such as J2EE, RUP, UML and J2EE patterns, this isn't a lengthy book. At just over 250 pages I was amazed at how much useful information it contains in such a small amount of space. It's also interesting to see that this book has two forewords. The first is written by Philippe Kruchten, Director of RUP Development. The second is by John Crupi, one of the authors of Core J2EE Patterns. This tells me that the authors have done their homework, and it shows.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent display of how to merge two valuable tools
Review: The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a language independent methodology that can be used to develop software. Constructed from a series of six best practice style guidelines, which are:

* Develop iteratively
* Manage requirements.
* Use component architectures.
* Model visually.
* Continuously verify quality.
* Manage change.

the RUP is a proven way to keep software projects on track. The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is the latest iteration of the Java language platform. Having only been introduced a few years ago, Java has undergone a phenomenal rate of adoption, which attests to the flexibility and power of the language. In this book, the two are combined, as the authors take you through a series of steps that show you how to construct the architecture of an online auction system using J2EE.
After finishing the book, I suddenly realized that I did not remember seeing any actual code. In fact there are a few lines, but only to demonstrate some of the J2EE component technologies, which is the topic of chapter 2. Code is not used in the chapters that describe the modeling of the project, which is a strong point in favor of the authors. Had they included code in this section, it would have just complicated the explanation without improving it.
Diagrams are heavily used throughout the book, which serves to clarify many of the critical points. However, the strongest area of the book is the use of Activity boxes, which are also used throughout the book. They are sections set aside having the form:

* Title. For example, Activity: Structure the use-case model.
* Overview. A brief explanation of the activity and how it is carried out.
* Input artifacts. What must be present when the activity starts.
* Resulting artifacts. What should be present when the activity is over.
* Steps. The operations to be performed in the activity.

I found these activity boxes of enormous help, and in most cases relied on them for the bulk of the information that I was looking for. Additional explanation appears in the text, but in many cases, I found it unnecessary.
The selection of the online auction project was a good one. It is complicated enough to provide an effective demonstration, yet simple enough to be understandable. The principles of an auction are easy to understand, so the only explanations needed are the additional rules needed to conduct one online.
This book is an effective demonstration of how to use RUP to build software. Since there is very little code, the structures are based on the organizational characteristics of J2EE rather than specific commands in the language. Therefore, it really is not necessary to understand Java to benefit from the book, and there certainly is a great deal of benefit to be gleaned from it.

Rating:
Summary: Best book for learning to use RUP with J2EE development
Review: Well worth the money. It does a great job in simply describing how to follow RUP for J2EE dev. Does not go into depth, you will need more guidance, I use the RUP Plugin that is available for use with RUP that was created from the content in this book. It has been refined and much detailed has been added for real app dev use.