Professional Java E-Commerce

Rating:
Summary: A Complete Guide for Java E-Commerce App.
Review: Being a member of technical reviewing team for this book, i found this book extremely good for the Java Professinals. This Book Talks about all the latest technology and their significance in real world.Its talks about B@B, B2C , XMl , JMS, etc. I Found this book to be as complete and best books on java technologies in recent times.

Rating:
Summary: If it's all about Java and E-Commerce, buy this one
Review: I am a Java developer and I bought this book as I wanted to enhance my knowledge about architecting E-Commerce systems with Java. When talking of E-Commerce, I thought like other books this book will focus on B2C E-Commerce. But I was surprised to see even a larger section deveoted to B2B E-Commerce. Now this section and the last section about M-Commerce(Smart cards etc) are probably the best sections in this book. Ok B2C section is good enough but didn't cotain anything new as far as I am concerned. There are separate sections for 'What is E-Commerce?' and 'Doing E-Commerce with Java', there is lot of theory in them and probably are there to just add weight to the book.

So all in all I give this one 4-Star rating and I'll suggest this book to any Java developer looking to get his/her hands wet in E-Commerce especially B2C and M-Commerce.

Rating:
Summary: Where's the e-commerce, where's the professionality?
Review: I can't believe the rating some people give this book. This book touches a lot of areas with little depth. The book contains a lot of filling with no practical usable things.

The information on practical Java E-commerce is very limited, and if you need usable information on JSP, Application Servers, ... I suggest you buy books about the specific areas you need information on. Even if this book was intended to be a high level overview on E-commerce it would miss its mark.

Rating:
Summary: THE Essential practical guide to J2EE design and b2b XML
Review: Just recently out (february 2001) This book is THE essential guide to latest J2EE design and concepts, technologies (XSLT), and b2c and b2b XML. I have bought copies for my entire team. Starting with a half-dozen too-general-to-be-useful intro chapters on J2EE and design methodologies (RUP, Extreme programming), it gets very quickly "down and dirty" into actual code sample for XSLT, and it keeps on getting better with discussion of security and then no less than FOUR real-world detailed designs WITH CODE of real-world b2c and b2b sites written by people who've been there, done that. Includes chapters on latest b2b XML and supply-chain integration cXML ebXML etc (a little light on this though) , and WAP and smart cards. Suggested complementary reading: "UML Distilled", "XML Bible", "XSLT Programmer's Reference", "Visual Modeling with Rational Rose 2000", "Mastering Enterprise Java Beans". If you can master these 6 books you'll be making $150/hr on the streets of New York in no time. Missing: a good ebXML book, but as of April 2001 none had been published.

Rating:
Summary: Out of date and filled with fluff
Review: Of all the technical books I've read this one qualifies as the worst. It's out of date, but even when it was new it would justify my opinion.

It attempts to cover too wide an area of subjects, and manages to either state the obvious (as in the first chapters that make a sophmoric attempt to define e-commenrce), to display questionable knowledge on the part of contributing authors, as in the section that lamely attempts to discuss architecture. The section on architecture should have been written by someone who could write and who understood architecture. Unfortunately I got the impression that the authors had neither qualifications.

The case studies were interesting, but were not sufficiently insightful to warrant buying this book that those alone.

There are positives to this book though. It weighs nearly 6 pounds, making it suitable as a doorstop. Having photos of all of the authors who contributed on the front cover is helpful if you conduct interviews since it helps in the screen process in case one of them shows up for an interview or tries to come in as a consultant.

My advice is to avoid this book. There are much better ones that cover the subjects in it.

Rating:
Summary: Out of date and filled with fluff
Review: Of all the technical books I've read this one qualifies as the worst. It's out of date, but even when it was new it would justify my opinion.

It attempts to cover too wide an area of subjects, and manages to either state the obvious (as in the first chapters that make a sophmoric attempt to define e-commenrce), to display questionable knowledge on the part of contributing authors, as in the section that lamely attempts to discuss architecture. The section on architecture should have been written by someone who could write and who understood architecture. Unfortunately I got the impression that the authors had neither qualifications.

The case studies were interesting, but were not sufficiently insightful to warrant buying this book that those alone.

There are positives to this book though. It weighs nearly 6 pounds, making it suitable as a doorstop. Having photos of all of the authors who contributed on the front cover is helpful if you conduct interviews since it helps in the screen process in case one of them shows up for an interview or tries to come in as a consultant.

My advice is to avoid this book. There are much better ones that cover the subjects in it.

Rating:
Summary: Ecellent overview of a wide range of topics
Review: The Audience for this Book

Java E-Commerce is aimed at people who already know Java and need to evaluate the technologies available. I first I wondered what the target audience would be, if you are a programmer you might not get to choose the technologies and if you are a manager you might not have the time or inclination to learn about these technologies in such depth. I now appreciate that they are appropriate for just about anyone except a beginner, most programmers need to know what technologies are available and managers need to know what the programmers are talking about.

How the book is organised

The book is divided into five sections starting with The E-commerce Landscape. This didn't tell me much I didn't already know, evolution of internet... exciting, define e-commerce....arpanet, web browsers etc etc. All scene setting stuff, but you can't have a fairy story without "once upon a time". Things get a little more interesting with Section 2, "Architecting Java Based e-commerce systems".

Some parts of the web world assume that "everyone uses Microsoft Internet Explorer". The authors of this book recognize that in the future your audience might well be WebTV, a mobile phone or PDA. Although there is plenty of coverage of specific Java technologies such as EJB and Servlets the book recognises that most developments will have to fit in with legacy systems and that the heart of the task is to give the potential purchaser a usable and easy browsing experiences.

Much of the material covers topics I already knew about superficially. Some crucial aspects covered are EJB, XML and JMS. I was fairly stunned to note a mention of the Log4J technology from the Apache group. If you haven't come across Log4J, go to the Apache org web site and download it. I challenge anyone not to find a use for it in any non trivial application. Even allowing for the time it takes to put a book together this illustrates that the authors are right at the front of developing technologies, absorb what these people say, they know what they are talking about.

Plenty of XML Coverage

The topic of XML runs though large parts of the book. Chapter 16 gives an interesting overview of the emerging standards in XML dtd's. There are a raft of competing standards and the dust is yet to clear on which ones will be generally adopted. Chapter 13 has an in-depth discussion of an Intelligent Assistant, ie a natural language parser system to allow customers to interact with a virtual shop assistant. I thought this was interesting in an academic way but I suspect that the number of people who will actually adopt this technology would be very small indeed. The

Bits I enjoyed most

The part I enjoyed most was a part I thought I might not even get around to reading which was Chapter 23, "In the MarketPlace, Corporate Purchasing". This is written in a laconic style by people who obviously have plenty of real world experience. Mixed in with headings like " Characteristics of Corporate Purchasing Systems are titles like "The headaches of having more than one partner." At the end of this chapter are 4 case studies that made me smile for all the right reasons. I did my post graduate education in Software after I had a decade of experience in the industry. It used to annoy me that the lecturers insisted on describing an ideal world that I knew did not exist. I get annoyed by technical books that insist that by following their golden recipes everything will go perfectly. The 4 case studies illustrate that things rarely go to plan, frequently do not go as expected and sometimes have to use horrible solutions but can still solve the problems. If you are browsing your local book shop, pick up this book and jump to the end of chapter 23.

I try to read everything I can about emerging net and Java technologies but I learnt a whole slew of new things reading Java E-Commerce. Notably the nature of B2B technologies. I had rather foolishly assumed it was just more web applications where the person using the browser at one end was in a business and connecting to a server at another business. It actually refers to using web technologies to replace the automated EDI technologies that large corporations have been using for years. I found the topic of XSLT transformations fascinating in that it explains how to get around the incompatibilities between different forms of XML used by different companies. If two companies use different DTDs to structure their XML XSLT can be used to convert between the formats. Until I read that section I had thought of XSLT as a way of transforming XML into nicely formatted HTML.

I found the chapter on M-commerce (transactions via mobile devices) to be interesting as a primer on what can be done via mobile devices, but I suspect you could fit everyone who has ever placed an order via a mobile phone, in my living room and still have space for unexpected visitors.
The book gives a high level coverage of a wide range of related Java technologies by people who appear to have actually worked with them on real world projects. The authors seem to have actually used the technologies in the real world rather than just read the documents and played with a few toy applications. It gives you enough to evaluate how and where you would use each of the technologies and examples of how people have used it in real projects.

Should you buy it?

If you want to be aware of what technologies are available and find out how they can be applied then this is an excellent buy. If you want to start to learn and implement any of the topics mentioned from scratch, you would be better off buying a book that caters specifically for that topic.
...

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: There are a few good sections in this book (mainly the chapters that deal with WebLogic and the appendices of primers and reference material that comprise Section 6). However, considering that this book weighs in at over 1000 pages, its mainly fluff or glib (but not helpful), with too much material that states the obvious.

Much of the fluff is found in Section 1 (The E-Commerce Landscape), and Section 2 (Architecting Java-Based E-Commerce Systems) was, in my opinion, a glossed over, high-level overview that was used as filler.

Sections 3 (B2C E-Commerce Solutions) and 4 (B2B E-Commerce Solutions) have a few interesting chapters in each. My main complaint here is that Section 3 is a mix of solutions and techniques, while Section 4 is purely solution-focused. Section 5 (M-Commerce) is too light to be useful, and most of the material is already woefully out of date.

My recommendation is to pass this book up and, instead, seek out single-topic books that address the subjects in which you're interested.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: There are a few good sections in this book (mainly the chapters that deal with WebLogic and the appendices of primers and reference material that comprise Section 6). However, considering that this book weighs in at over 1000 pages, its mainly fluff or glib (but not helpful), with too much material that states the obvious.

Much of the fluff is found in Section 1 (The E-Commerce Landscape), and Section 2 (Architecting Java-Based E-Commerce Systems) was, in my opinion, a glossed over, high-level overview that was used as filler.

Sections 3 (B2C E-Commerce Solutions) and 4 (B2B E-Commerce Solutions) have a few interesting chapters in each. My main complaint here is that Section 3 is a mix of solutions and techniques, while Section 4 is purely solution-focused. Section 5 (M-Commerce) is too light to be useful, and most of the material is already woefully out of date.

My recommendation is to pass this book up and, instead, seek out single-topic books that address the subjects in which you're interested.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent coverage
Review: This is the only book that covers such a wide range of issues relating to the application of Java to e-commerce. Although there are subjects that experienced users would certainly prefered to see treated in more depth this is an invaluable resource to those that need to get the big picture to a level that is practical and useful for understanding application and designing solutions. Well done.