Rating: 
Summary: Delivers as promised
Review: ... In the Preface, Berg writes "This book provides a big-picture, in a highly practical manner..." As a senior consultant who is primarily interested in enterprise application design and development with Java, the book delivers 100% of what has been promised. It does cover many important areas- Threads in Server Applications, Java Security, Distributed Computing Protocols (RMI, IIOP), Server Framewokrs and Architectures. I would even argue that the author had understated his accomplishment in writing this book. Which is why I decided to write this review. The book material focuses on design issues, their solutions, and the motivation behind them, but it is very down to earth and there are many helpful code snippets to keep you grounded. Each chapter presents the important concepts and introduce the subject at the overview level first and provide more detailed treatment of topics that are of advanced nature. Additionally, the book provides a very practical introduction to some non-technical aspects of the software development process, in particular- Project Management and Configuration Managament. Personally, I have found the book to be very useful. I post this paragraph as a revision of my initial review, because I myself was surprised as to how often I use it as a starting point of reference. Now, if you are looking for a "cookbook" of code recipes, please go on to consider other titles. But if you would like a very sound introduction to client/server or multi-tiered development with J2EE, please seriosly consider this one. ...
Rating:
Summary: Concisely covers a wide magnitude of subjects!
Review: An outstanding book written by Clifford Berg. He has touched on all the major aspects of JAVA and will guide you through whatever your needs are. This book will stand as a perfect reference guide for JAVA users! I highly recommend it! Thanks Clifford for your great book!
Rating:
Summary: Concisely covers a wide magnitude of subjects!
Review: An outstanding book written by Clifford Berg. He has touched on all the major aspects of JAVA and will guide you through whatever your needs are. This book will stand as a perfect reference guide for JAVA users! I highly recommend it! Thanks Clifford for your great book!
Rating:
Summary: Clarification of book's purpose
Review: Dear fellow Java developers - I just had to respond in general to comments which importune readers to read my book for its "interesting ideas", and that the book is "a good overview, INFORMATIVE, and raises a few interesting questions" and so on but then not to buy it! As well as comments describing the book as boring. Whether a book is boring will always be a personal matter. A fellow classmate in college once told me that The Epic Of Gilgamesh was boring. I remember feeling at the time that he did not appreciate its uniqueness, and I felt regret for him. Indeed, Nietzsche said Plato was boring! But it is true, that this is a personal matter. More concretely, the book's preface states its goals very clearly: "...This book is not intended to be an in-depth treatment of all enterprise subjects. ... However, an advanced programmer needs to have a working knowledge of most aspects of a system in order to understand the entire system. For example, a developer working on a set of Enterprise JavaBeans does not need to understand all security issues in depth but does need to have a working knowledge of the security techniques used by the servers involved and the application. This book tries to provide a big picture...." This is a book on architecture, and that is not a topic of interest to everyone. I am happy to report that I receive considerable fan mail regarding the book, and that has made the enormous effort worthwhile. Here is an email I received two weeks ago (Feb. 27, 2001): "Thanks for writing this book! Sorry to disturb you, but I had to do it (just to be sure you keep on writing new editions). Your book's the only one I found with this goal. And the most useful computer book I ever had since I started using the first edition 3 years ago. I keep going back to it, each time on another subject. Most books talk too much, don't summarize and/or don't add much to the Java specification and tutorials, yours does. -[reader's name] (Partly thanks to you)Senior Java Developer" So be your own judge! Sincerely, Cliff Berg
Rating:
Summary: Clarification of book's purpose
Review: Dear fellow Java developers - I just had to respond in general to comments which importune readers to read my book for its "interesting ideas", and that the book is "a good overview, INFORMATIVE, and raises a few interesting questions" and so on but then not to buy it! As well as comments describing the book as boring. Whether a book is boring will always be a personal matter. A fellow classmate in college once told me that The Epic Of Gilgamesh was boring. I remember feeling at the time that he did not appreciate its uniqueness, and I felt regret for him. Indeed, Nietzsche said Plato was boring! But it is true, that this is a personal matter. More concretely, the book's preface states its goals very clearly: "...This book is not intended to be an in-depth treatment of all enterprise subjects. ... However, an advanced programmer needs to have a working knowledge of most aspects of a system in order to understand the entire system. For example, a developer working on a set of Enterprise JavaBeans does not need to understand all security issues in depth but does need to have a working knowledge of the security techniques used by the servers involved and the application. This book tries to provide a big picture...." This is a book on architecture, and that is not a topic of interest to everyone. I am happy to report that I receive considerable fan mail regarding the book, and that has made the enormous effort worthwhile. Here is an email I received two weeks ago (Feb. 27, 2001): "Thanks for writing this book! Sorry to disturb you, but I had to do it (just to be sure you keep on writing new editions). Your book's the only one I found with this goal. And the most useful computer book I ever had since I started using the first edition 3 years ago. I keep going back to it, each time on another subject. Most books talk too much, don't summarize and/or don't add much to the Java specification and tutorials, yours does. -[reader's name] (Partly thanks to you)Senior Java Developer" So be your own judge! Sincerely, Cliff Berg
Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive
Review: I enjoyed this book because it was like one stop shopping for advanced Java subjects. The second edition is much better then the first and I really enjoyed the first edition.
Rating: 
Summary: BEFORE YOU BUY THIS BOOK - READ THIS!
Review: I expected this book to be as clear and useful as the Core Java 2 books by Hortsmann and Cornell...but it is NOT. Its a lot of talking about stuff, but there arent useful examples. Talk talk talk...extremely boring to read. Wordy beyond belief. Once again, if you are familiar with Core Java 2, then you know how lucid THOSE books are. Now...having said that...he does bring up some interesting ideas, and he does attempt to cover alot of topics. Just not well. You read a section, and then you're like : "Now What? I read it...I understand it...but how do i go about appyling anything? Throw me an example dude." Its just so damned annoying to read. All in all, its a good overview, INFORMATIVE, and raises a few interesting questions. Take a look at it in a book store or get ahold of an excerpt before buying. All i can say is that i should not be working so hard just to read his prose. Break up the 10 page long paragraph : Maybe if he bulleted some points, or reorganized how its laid out.. Just for comparison, i found the following books good reads (in terms of readability): ||Java Servlet Programming by Jason Hunter ||Core Java 2 : both volumes ||half of -> Professional Java Server Programming (Wrox Press) ||Applying UML by Craig Larson.
Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: I haven't read the book as a whole, just some chapters... But I can recommend it for everyone developing Enterprise applications. The book doesn't describe every chapter in detail, but provides a great overview, however, it helped me solving a major issue with RMI, other books and FAQs on the net didn't help, so I guess the chapter on RMI is detailed enough, and the chapter about project management provides a really GREAT and understandable overview. Other chapters are very good as well, although (as mentioned) I didn't read everything... However, buy this book for a great overview, and if you don't have problems all too specific it will also be of great help.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for an overview of J2EE
Review: Is this thing wordy? Sure! But it's an excellent book for team leaders to gain an insight on how Enterprise applications should be written, right down to who does what. It's more of a reference book than a tutorial, but for those of you interested in writing the Java Enterprise Architect certification from Sun, you might just want to read it over...
Rating:
Summary: Perfect resource for Java Architect certification test
Review: This book is for architects rather than for developers. I've found the answers for the most of test questions in it but I did read very meticulously. I think it is one of the best accumulative resources both for the test and for every day Java Architect work.
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