Rating: 
Summary: Response to "Already Obsolete" reviewer
Review: As the lead author of the book, I feel compelled to respond to the writer of the "Already Obsolete" posting.Criticizing this book because it doesn't cover 7.0 is wrong. The book covers 6.1, and it says so right on the cover. The comments about my presentation at the BEA event are also out of line. I wasn't "hawking the book" - in fact, I GAVE ONE AWAY at the end of the event. And it's not surprising that I "did not seem to think the answers to the audience questions would be found in the current version of the book," because the presentation was entitled, "WebLogic 7.0: What's New." As we've already established, the book covers 6.1, not 7.0.
Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: At last, a book that makes J2EE accessible, in the context of a real-world application server! I found this book to be impressive at every turn. It's well written, well edited, and even has a great website to go with it. And virtually all the source code on the website works. The authors say it's a book for learning WebLogic, not J2EE, but I disagree. I think it's a great resource for learning both. There are a lot of good J2EE books out there, but I find most of them to be a little too theoretical. This is the first one that brings J2EE down to earth. Given that you can download WebLogic Server for free, I can't think of a better way to get up to speed on this technology than to buy this book, download the software, and get to work. The authors do an incredible job of walking you carefully through every aspect of the product, from JDBC to clustering, and everything in between. They make the most complex topics seem simple, without dumbing them down. I work mostly with WLS, but also with WebSphere and Tomcat. This book has given me a solid grounding in concepts that apply to all three environments. If you need to learn WebLogic Server, this is the only book you need. If you need to learn J2EE but you're using a different server, don't write it off. It's a fantastic WebLogic Book, and a strong J2EE book as well.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for J2EE engineer
Review: Clearly written, good example, not only good for WebLogic user but also for J2EE engineers who use other application server.
Rating:
Summary: Best WebLogic Book
Review: Complete, detailed, easy to read and understand, this book should be shipped with every copy of WebLogic Server. The best money I've spent on a technical book in years. If you are developing applications with WebLogic, you should own a copy of this book. It clearly explains how to exploit J2EE technologies in your application architecture, as well as how to take advantage of the features of WebLogic Server. Invaluable as a learning guide or as a reference.
Rating:
Summary: Honestly the best book for Weblogic Server
Review: For someone who has used weblogic in developing applications, this is an awesome book for those new and old to weblogic server. I believe this author actually sat down and tried to put himself in other people's shoes and tried to make this book very easy to follow and practical. If this book did not meat my expectations I would be the first to condem it. He truly goes in depth with allof the major issues covering weblogic server. It's a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: an upgrade in the works???
Review: Hi This is to the authors of this book:
Since I bought this book a few months ago and it is a good book for version 6.1 However, with 7.0 available...could you tell about your plans for an upgrade chapter/electronic chapters for those of us who actually need to catch up on 7.0 ? If a book becomes obsolete (may be not the right word here - but meaning a book deals with older technology) this quickly....would you support your readers? Thanks
Ravi
Rating:
Summary: Great book if you use (or want to use) BEA WebLogic 6
Review: I am generally pleased with the book. I have been using WebLogic 6.0 for almost 2 years, so I bought the book mainly to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, and to study for the BEA Solution Developer exam. I particularly liked the section on JTA with the explanations of transaction isolation and demarcartion. I have read about these topics in other places, but never as understandable as here. I also liked Chapter 3 Designing WebLogic Applications as you lay out how to go from requirements to a design. Again I have read more than a few books on this but the way it is explained here it makes a lot of sense and doesn't take 600 pages to do so. In a general sense the examples are some of the best (session and entity beans, servlets and JSP). The are easy to follow, stick to the topic, and demonstrate how (and why) they work in WebLogic. The message-driven bean example in chapter 17 is the exception, with too many errors to list. One thing I really like about the book is that it explains J2EE topics pretty thoroughly, and then gets down to details of implementation on WebLogic. I take the stance that once I understand thoroughly how a technology works on WebLogic then I can probably get it to work on other app servers if needed. In contrast, I read the "Java Message Service" book by Richard Monson-Haefel & David Chappell (which is also a great book). The Monson-Haefel/Chappell book provided a deep understanding of JMS (which is good) but when it came time to deploy it on WebLogic I kinda had to stumble through it, simply because that book is not specific to WebLogic. I look forward to reading the various sections on security, a complex topic in and of itself.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I had only read the first few chapters and I already found this book to be extremely great! It give you a clear picture of installation and configuration of Weblogic. It is a book that encompass everything you need to know about development by Weblogic. If you a greenhorn in Weblogic like me, this is a great book to get yourself start off!
Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: I have just finished reading about 90% of the book, and I think its great. The authors have done an excellent job at explaining technical concepts and the nitty-gritty's of WLS which not many people know. I think this is good book for the money,
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book if you're new or less than an expert on WL
Review: I learn best by doing. When I buy technical books, I prefer those that include a lot of working examples. I have recently had an immense quantity of J2EE architecture poured into my somewhat leaky old brain, and I was looking for something that could get everything to gel together when I happened on this book. Since Weblogic Server 6.1 is the server in use on my current assignment, I bought this book with the intention of cobbling together a test environment and working through its many examples. At first the going was pretty good. Zuffoletto has an easily readable style and, with his guidance, I got the server up and running without too many traumas. I was OK until I started to work through the RMI examples in the book. They didn't work. After some fumbling, I went to the website and downloaded the updates examples. They were quite a bit different, but still didn't work. Fortunately, I have knowledgeable friends, and we eventually filled in the gaps and got everything up and running. My first issue with the book is that this pattern repeated itself frequently. The text itself is great, but from a practical viewpoint, the supporting examples have many gaps in them. Sometimes the errors are glaring - failure to qualify the class name when running it in the JVM. Sometimes they are quite subtle. I frequently got the feeling that the book was really written for Weblogic 6.0 and then given a slight makeover to adapt it to 6.1. In addition, the book often fails to provide the kind of detailed practical explanations of how to compile and where to place code that are vital to beginners. I also think Zuffoletto should have spent more time working through the intricacies of managing the Weblogic Server. As it is, the book is more focused on being a general introduction to using the technologies that WLS 6.1 supports. This isn't necessarily bad, but I found myself struggling to figure out whether I had set up the parameters correctly a few too many times. In addition, I had some problems because I use MS SQL Server for persistence rather than Oracle, and so was left out in the cold a bit. On the good side, this is a very well written book that covered an immense amount of material without getting bogged down anywhere. It starts from scratch and takes you from setting up the environment and the development team, to the various API's (JNDI, RMI, JDBC, JMS, JTA, and JavaMail), and then through the major development patters (JSP, EJB, etc.). The final third of the book focuses on Weblogic administration and support and then some time is spent on what I think of as more emergent technologies (such as SOAP). If coverage isn't always as deep as it could be, one has to keep in mind that this is a 900-page book as it is. I guess my real problem is that the book doesn't quite live up to its hype. Which is, perhaps more the fault of the publisher than Zuffoletto and his team. It is Hungry Minds, after all, that put the '100% Comprehensive, Authoritative, and What You Need' on the books cover. Well, it's a bit more like 70%, but that isn't all bad. Had the examples been a bit more workable (perhaps by expanding on the books website) I would have been very happy with it. As it is, I don't regret reading it at all,
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