Rating: 
Summary: Good, Very practical ...
Review: Dov Bulka obviously knows quite a few things about "Java performance tuning". He has a Ph.D. degree - I think in this field. Among others, he was one of the architects of the IBM Domino-Go Web Server - one large source of his knowledge. His examples are in my opinion very well chosen - they cover typical Java performance issues. The book is very systematically organized - it is a pleasure to read it. The examples come often from "his" Web server source code, but are presented in a very "neutral" way so that they are valuable for any Java server and also - at least a large part of it - client development. In the last chapter, Dov Bulka "puts it all together" and presents a sort of case study: He picked up an example source code of a Web server from the javasoft WWW page and applies "his" optimization "tricks". This way, he is able to reach more than !! 4 TIMES !! higher throughput - not bad!
Rating: 
Summary: So far I'm unimpressed
Review: I bought this a couple of weeks ago and really just started it. However, it is distressing to find an error of the magnitude described in "Optimization 3" on page 14. There the author compares the execution times of String comparisons both case sensitive and case insensitive. It is noted that "an unintuitive result" is when one of the IgnoreCase compares executes faster than its same case equivalent. A reason that digs into Java internals of both "equals" and "equalsIgnoreCase" is offered. The problem I see is that in my book the IgnoreCase test is timed for 1 million iterations and the same case test for 10 million iterations! So either there is an error in the text or the comparison of "equivalent" benchmarks is false. Leaving one without useful conclusions. The publisher's (Addison-Wesley) website does little to help - it says the book has a supporting website, but doesn't provide a link - nor does there appear to be a link referenced in the book anywhere I could find. :(
Rating:
Summary: Good for those H1B guys.
Review: I have to work with Chinese, Pakistani and Indian programmers who were handed a copy of "Learn Java in 24 hours" Then they start hacking on my project. This book helps me fight with them when they do stupid things over and over. I already knew 90% of what is in this book, but it's nice to have everything laid out for you clearly. Where is Volume 2?
Rating: 
Summary: Professional Java programmers must read this book
Review: I was very skeptical when I picked up this book, because most authors on Java performance don't seem to have actually tested their theories. Dov Bulka, however, has included charts demonstrating actual performance gains. He's also shown how some kinds of purported optimizations _don't_ have a measurable effect, which is an excellent way of knowing what to avoid.The author never compromises software engineering or program correctness in the pursuit of performance. His suggestions are practical and applicable to a wide variety of programs. The book is also well-written, clear, and a joy to read. As the subtitle says, it's primarily about server-side processing. It's not going to tell you how to scroll tables faster, nor is it going to tell you to use a quicksort instead of a bubble sort. Still, every Java programmer should know how this author goes about working with Java performance, because it's a great framework for making improvements. The book claims to be volume 1. I'm really looking forward to volume 2.
Rating:
Summary: Reasonable coverage of techniques, not design or achitecture
Review: It actually contains less content than you would think as it's full of redundant source code listings and "chart junk" charts that take half a page to display two numbers. This is a programming techniques book, not a design or architecture book, don't look for discussions of patterns here. On the other hand, I bought and read the book and wasn't disappointed. The material covered is interesting and Dov does have the figures to back up the recommendations. Also, the results are sometimes surprising. Overall worth reading, if only to make you think more carefully before you choose a Vector over and array, or when you're deciding whether you'd like a Hashtable or a HashMap.
Rating:
Summary: Worth browsing only
Review: It's only worth spending an hour or so browsing. Most tricks are well known to experienced Java developers, such as using StringBuffer instead of String. And the book is too rambling. You can easily cut the pages in half. Often chunks of code is repeated with just a method name change, e.g. from println() to print(). Although it's claimed to be "Server-Side", it's really weak in that area. Sections on RMI and serialization are trivial and not to the point. The chapter on Servlet is not convincing.
Rating: 
Summary: It is a worthless book
Review: The book has nothing to do with server-side java performance. Scalability? author has put no clue about this word in his book. Lot of java junk books are coming in market now-a-days and this books shines well in that category. Save your money and wait for a better one. Oreilly's upcoming book may have some value in this area, but I would see that book also before purchasing it.
Rating: 
Summary: Tips and Tricks.. but thats that
Review: There are many good tips and tricks in this book but thats where it ends. I expected a bit more continuity on issues definitively surrounding server side development. It seems like it competes with "Effective Java" which the title does not imply.
Rating:
Summary: Good for those H1B guys.
Review: There are many good tips and tricks in this book but thats where it ends. I expected a bit more continuity on issues definitively surrounding server side development. It seems like it competes with "Effective Java" which the title does not imply.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, easy read that I could apply immediately.
Review: This book covers the basics of improving the performance of server side java programs by writing different java statements. I like the fact that it had just the answers, not excessive amounts of padding. I especially liked the chapter on taking an existing, well written java program that was a web server, and optimising it in several stages. The stages were consistent with the optimisations discussed in the preceding chapters which helped put it those chapters into context nicely. The optimisations turned a good web server written in Java into a much faster one, which was good to see. I describe this as a "basic" book on optimisation because the chapter on RMI was rather light, presumably because of the 80:20 rule wereby the biggest gains can be had with the simplest of coding changes. Going into more detail would have made the book thicker so perhaps it was best it was left as it was. There is perhaps an opportunity for someone to write an "advanced" version at some later stage. I'd recommend this book to someone who is an experienced java programmer who wants to make their java programs run quicker. I certainly found it useful in my own java programs.
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