Beginning J2EE 1.4: From Novice to Professional (Apress Beginner Series)

Rating:
Summary: Great Reference
Review: As a professional software developer, I've used some of the J2EE technologies on projects. I picked this book up to fill in knowledge gaps on some the features of J2EE that I hadn't used before. As I expected this book does a good job of covering the basics, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this book also covers some advanced topics. I expect that even experienced developers will find themselves referring back to this book not only for a refresher on the basics, but as a reference for advanced topics as well.

There is a little bit of tongue in cheek humor sprinkled through the book, such as one section heading called "Using JNDI to Phone Home". If you don't get the joke, read the first chapter on EJB's and you will. If you get the joke and are groaning, then you haven't hung around with enough software developers. That kind of thing constitutes high brow humor at my company. I can't wait to get back to work and use it.

The first chapter is an overview of web based applications, and where J2EE technology fits into the picture. It paints the big picture view that should be enlightening to most everyone, other than the seasoned web developer.

The second chapter is either the most, or least important of the book. It is instructions for how to setup the Sun J2EE environment on your machine, and the PointBase database. If you already have access to a J2EE 1.4 environment, then you may not need this chapter. The examples in the book are using the Sun tools, so you may want to follow the setup to make it easier to step through the examples in the book.

Chapters 3 & 4 are about JSP's and go from the basics to some pretty advanced topics, such as tag libraries, and expression language. I found quite a few bits of valuable information in these chapters.

Chapter 5 is about servlets. Servlets have been around for a quite a while now. If you aren't familiar with them, this is a good introduction to the technology.

Chapters 6 and 7 are about database access. Writing web applications really start getting fun when you start thinking about hitting the database. These are a couple of meaty chapters that start with the basics, straight JDBC/SQL, and then cover some advanced topics like stored procedures, database locking and isolation levels. I was pleased to pick up a lot of new and valuable information in these chapters.

Chapters 8 through 11 cover EJB's. Again you are taken from the basics, through advanced topics. EJB's are a tough subject, in my opinion. But, this book does spend a lot of time explaining how to configure and deploy them, which isn't obvious. If you aren't familiar with EJB's, being able to follow along with the examples in the book, having followed the chapter 2 setup, will be a big help. If you can make it through creating and deploying your EJB's, then the book covers some advanced topics like container managed relationships (CMR), EJB-QL, and EJB design patterns.

Chapters 12 and 13 cover web services. Before I read this chapter I would not have considered web services, a J2EE topic. It is certainly a web application topic, and something that seems to be emerging more often as a solution in web applications. However, I didn't realize how J2EE now makes some accommodations to support building a web services application with J2EE technologies. Again, interesting material in these chapters.

I am anticipating that I will be referring back to this book quite often.

Rating:
Summary: Great Reference
Review: As a professional software developer, I've used some of the J2EE technologies on projects. I picked this book up to fill in knowledge gaps on some the features of J2EE that I hadn't used before. As I expected this book does a good job of covering the basics, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this book also covers some advanced topics. I expect that even experienced developers will find themselves referring back to this book not only for a refresher on the basics, but as a reference for advanced topics as well.

There is a little bit of tongue in cheek humor sprinkled through the book, such as one section heading called "Using JNDI to Phone Home". If you don't get the joke, read the first chapter on EJB's and you will. If you get the joke and are groaning, then you haven't hung around with enough software developers. That kind of thing constitutes high brow humor at my company. I can't wait to get back to work and use it.

The first chapter is an overview of web based applications, and where J2EE technology fits into the picture. It paints the big picture view that should be enlightening to most everyone, other than the seasoned web developer.

The second chapter is either the most, or least important of the book. It is instructions for how to setup the Sun J2EE environment on your machine, and the PointBase database. If you already have access to a J2EE 1.4 environment, then you may not need this chapter. The examples in the book are using the Sun tools, so you may want to follow the setup to make it easier to step through the examples in the book.

Chapters 3 & 4 are about JSP's and go from the basics to some pretty advanced topics, such as tag libraries, and expression language. I found quite a few bits of valuable information in these chapters.

Chapter 5 is about servlets. Servlets have been around for a quite a while now. If you aren't familiar with them, this is a good introduction to the technology.

Chapters 6 and 7 are about database access. Writing web applications really start getting fun when you start thinking about hitting the database. These are a couple of meaty chapters that start with the basics, straight JDBC/SQL, and then cover some advanced topics like stored procedures, database locking and isolation levels. I was pleased to pick up a lot of new and valuable information in these chapters.

Chapters 8 through 11 cover EJB's. Again you are taken from the basics, through advanced topics. EJB's are a tough subject, in my opinion. But, this book does spend a lot of time explaining how to configure and deploy them, which isn't obvious. If you aren't familiar with EJB's, being able to follow along with the examples in the book, having followed the chapter 2 setup, will be a big help. If you can make it through creating and deploying your EJB's, then the book covers some advanced topics like container managed relationships (CMR), EJB-QL, and EJB design patterns.

Chapters 12 and 13 cover web services. Before I read this chapter I would not have considered web services, a J2EE topic. It is certainly a web application topic, and something that seems to be emerging more often as a solution in web applications. However, I didn't realize how J2EE now makes some accommodations to support building a web services application with J2EE technologies. Again, interesting material in these chapters.

I am anticipating that I will be referring back to this book quite often.

Rating:
Summary: Great Starter for EJB Development
Review: I used this book to get started with the basics of EJB development and it worked great.

Rating:
Summary: Novice EJB Reviewer
Review: I've been programming on the web before there was Java but never really got into or saw the value in EJB's. That has changed in the latest specifications as they start mature. I found this book very helpful in getting started with EJB's but taking examples far enough to make them useful for real world problems. The text took examples to another level with good design patterns for use with EJB's. Another great bonus was the inclusion of complete code, and not just snippets. The only thing I would want to be improved or different would be examples with JBoss and eclipse. I understand its hard to write for all target platforms, but its on the wish list.

Rating:
Summary: Novice EJB Reviewer
Review: I've been programming on the web before there was Java but never really got into or saw the value in EJB's. That has changed in the latest specifications as they start mature. I found this book very helpful in getting started with EJB's but taking examples far enough to make them useful for real world problems. The text took examples to another level with good design patterns for use with EJB's. Another great bonus was the inclusion of complete code, and not just snippets. The only thing I would want to be improved or different would be examples with JBoss and eclipse. I understand its hard to write for all target platforms, but its on the wish list.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: If you are trying to learn J2EE, and info from SUN webpage made you more confused than ever before. Read this book; that would be the start.

Rating:
Summary: Very well-rounded.
Review: Normally I'm not the type of person that puts the effort into reviewing a product online. In fact, I believe this is my first review ever. However, the quality of this book motivated me to publicly declare my opinion and appreciation.

I've been a Software Developer for eight years, and Java only within the past year. Recently my company asked me to create an application, however this time I was to experiment with J2EE as the platform. I struggled through it, mostly via trial-and-error, javadocs, online tutorials, etc.

Then I dediced to get this book to fill in the gaps. It accomplished this task extremely well. I already knew around 60% of what the book contained, but the remaining 40% was extremely usefull. The explanations were clear and easy to understand. It followed a logical progression of topics.

What I appreciated the most about the book is the ability of the author(s) to satisfy the questions that would come up as I read the text. It's as if they put great effort into preparing for what the reader may be wondering as they read a description or example, and then answered these questions in the next paragraph. Even including the small details that would otherwise prevent me from effectively using the overall topic in the real world.

Where other books would suffice to say "This is what you do to make this happen," and maybe "This is why," this book goes the extra mile and says, "This is what happens in the background when you do this." This is extremely usefull information when it comes time to creating a real application. It gives you the insight needed to make well-informed decisions on which methods, protocols, libraries, etc. to use. Not to mention debugging.

I also appreciated how they included step-by-step examples which were very well-done. They demonstrated the topic-at-hand, without getting too wordy and involved. The exercises were also thought-provoking.

Of course, I realize that good reviews should also include what negative things the reviewer found with the product. Although the positive far outways the negative, I did find some slight grievances. There could have been more exercises. Sometimes they repeated instructions which a competent reader should be able to do on his own after the first time.

That's about it. As far as complaints, they are hardly worth mentioning. If you are a fairly new J2EE developer, do yourself a favor and get this book!

Rating:
Summary: The Gist of J2EE 1.4
Review: The introduction to this book emphasises a "meat and potatoes" approach. The authors focus on describing the key points of J2EE 1.4, that most users can expect to need, most of the time. The reason this is necessary is because J2EE in this latest iteration encompasses a group of subjects, each of which can be, and has been, the sole subject of a book.

Specifically, we have Java Server Pages and Java Servlets. These are often used to make dynamic web pages, within a web server container like Tomcat, which gets an appendix of its own here, due to its importance.

As a practical matter, these JSPs/Servlets often hook up to databases. So J2EE involves using JDBC. Another 2 chapters here.

Business logic is often encapsulated using Enterprise Java Beans. These are now quite mature. Their widespread use in a J2EE context is reflected here in the 4 chapters devoted to them. These include a discussion of the recently introduced Message Driven Beans, used in JMS.

Finally, 2 chapters are given over to Web Services. Here the discussion is somewhat skimpy. Not thru any fault of the authors. Web Services are currently very inchoate. Much is being claimed for their future potential. But in terms of what is defined and available right now - well there isn't much. If you really are interested in Web Services, try a companion volume from the same publisher, "Google, Amazon and Beyond: Creating and Consuming Web Services" by Nakhimovsky and Myers.

The utility of this book is in letting you quickly come up to speed on J2EE. As a practical matter, once you have done so, you may want to get comprehensive books on the specific J2EE subjects that you will be dealing with. A virtue of this book is that it deliberately is NOT comprehensive. But it gives you the gist of each subject.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent beginner's guide, except for focus on Sun's server
Review: This book provides an excellent start on J2EE. It covers a good set of topics, including Servlets, JSP, and the various forms of EJBs.

My only disappointment is that the book focuses on Sun's J2EE server. This server will not likely be used for production. The book provides detailed usage information for Sun's proprietary deployment tool.

In my opinion, JBoss should be used as the application server for teaching. The server is free, deployment is as simple as copying a JAR file, and the server is truly enterprise ready. Plus, the book would then provide more complete examples of deployment descriptors.