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Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: I bought this book hoping for a quick jumpstart to getting a simple xdoclet/struts app up and running.
The example code from the "Building Struts Apps with Ant and XDoclet" is so bad, it's a disgrace. I spent more time figuring out why their code wasn't even close to working, than I would have if I had just skipped their book altogether. It couldn't work, it never worked, and it shouldn't have been published.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reference for open-source tools
Review: I bought this book mostly because I am fairly new to open-source development and was looking for a good reference to tools such as Ant, JUnit, Cactus, and Maven. These chapters were concise and had plenty of supporting examples. I also liked the fact that the book provides plenty of tips, and has references to good practices. I definitely recommend it to less experienced developers, or to those looking to have a better understanding of open-source tools.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice Surprise
Review: I ordered this book based on the title and the preview content here on Amazon (I couldn't find it at the B&N near my work). I was very pleasantly surprised at the practical, nuts-and-bolts approach that the authors took to XP and the tools in this book. I was also extremely pleased at how well the authors showed the integration of these tools into a sophisticated and professional development environment. This is not easy, especially when working with a wide range of tools which includes
* CVS
* Ant
* XDoclet
* JUnit
* JUnitPerf
* Bugzilla
* JMeter
* Cactus
* jcoverage
* Swing testing tools like Jemmy
* Maven
* Anthill
And even though all these tools are O.S., some projects are very territorial (eg they consider other tools to be the competition) so just reading the docs will not always help you choose the right tool for the right job or learn how to use the tools together.
The code I downloaded from the Wrox site was a little rough (some missing files), but the version I downloaded last week was *much* better and has solved all the earlier problems I was having. I'm glad the authors were responsive and willing to release fixes. Great stuff!
Rating:
Summary: Buy this Book Only if you want to look Good at Work
Review: Let's face it. We are only going to buy something if we get really useful technical knowledge for work or it helps us look good at work. This book does both. With this book you will learn these open source tools quickly. Open Source may be free, but it comes with a high cost of reading badly written documentation if any does exist.
This will save you time going straight to learning the tools. Once you know these tools this will hopefully save you time at work. The real value is when you tell your boss how effective these tools are and that they are free. It is a win-win situation learning open source tools and this book makes it easier.
I look forward to a follow up to this book, since there are even more open source tools that are out there now.
Rating:
Summary: a solid start for beginners
Review: Seriously, I can't find any other book right now that lays Maven out in such an easy to approach way. All the material online is reference based entirely and my fingers are practically bleeding from digging through google every five seconds. If you've never setup Maven before, buy this book while you still have your hair.
Rating:
Summary: a solid start for beginners
Review: Seriously, I can't find any other book right now that lays Maven out in such an easy to approach way. All the material online is reference based entirely and my fingers are practically bleeding from digging through google every five seconds. If you've never setup Maven before, buy this book while you still have your hair.
Rating: 
Summary: Tons of Typos
Review: This book is a convenient way to get a decent introduction to Java tools because all of the information is condensed into one book. However, there is nothing in here that you can't read online for free if you take the time to find it. I am really angry that I paid $40 for a book that is full of typos. There are literally typos on every other page. I have never encountered so many typos in a book before this one. The typos are especially troublesome because they often occur in the examples so if you are unfamiliar with the syntax of the new tool being taught you will get unexplainable errors when the bad examples don't work for you. Print out online tutorials, this book is a waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: A book for beginners at best
Review: This short text (340 pages, remainder is API reference) contains enough information to get you up to speed quickly with some valuable tools. Developers and project managers alike will shine by adding automated build, test, and reporting tools to their repertoire, and I certainly can't complain about that.I would have expected a more thorough job of tying the tools back to Extreme Programming, but those not interested in XP or those already familiar with XP will appreciate the "down to business" style. Much of the sample code is too simplistic to be helpful, and I found the case study to be much less valuable than others have suggested, but both provide enough context to whet one's appetite. Most of these tools have excellent documentation anyway, and this book serves its purpose well: an adequate introduction to some great productivity tools.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference for open-source tools
Review: You can happily ignore the main title of this book. Sure there's a nod toward extreme programming, but that's not what this book is really all about. This book is a fine introduction to a whole bunch of really useful tools to boost your Java (and especially J2EE) programming. And all the tools can be downloaded, source code and all, for free! There are too many tools to list here, but they include the best-of-breed Ant build system, JUnit, HTTPUnit, ServletUnit and Cactus test frameworks, load and performance analysers and some great libraries for interacting with other servers. Two major test cases are carried through the book to show the benefits of each approach. Each tool covered gets at least a chapter of tutorial, and some of the major ones also get an appendix of API and configuration information. This book was almost too useful to review. It's been open on my desk from almost the minute I got it and has greatly improved many aspects of my development process. If you want to get up to speed quickly and practically on a load of useful, powerful, tools - get this book. Everyone I've shown it to has wanted their own copy ...
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