Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans and the Java 2 ™ Platform, Enterprise Edition
In the past few years, companies have been returning to multi-tiered design of backend server architectures. Java has become a popular language for implementing these systems, due in no small part to the release of new technologies such as Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) and the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform. When used together, they help programmers make more robust and interchangeable server components -- but keeping up with the radical shift in thinking, and new class libraries, is pretty tough for developers. This book was written by Ed Roman as a means of helping people understand the complex technologies involved with EJB programming, and to overcome them. Straight off in the preface, Ed points out that EJB's are not easy and does not want to lead the reader astray into thinking it is. After reading this book, I have a very good impression of it, and found that Ed was correct about EJB's not being easy. It covers EJB's as a whole and explains any other necessary technologies, such as transactions, servlets, XML and RMI-IIOP, as needed. When certain technologies are chosen over others, the author provides sound reasons as to why the decision was made. Due to the level of tasks that Sun designed EJB's to handle, they are very complex and the API is very rich. That's why you need an authoritative reference like Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans, to help get you up to speed with EJB development. Reading the specification alone with out a guide means many hours of frustration and lost time, and you'll find you've only scratched the surface of this topic. This book covers the EJB 1.0 standard, but does point out that the EJB 1.1 standard has improved some of the problems. An appendix covers the improvements in EJB 1.1, but this book is still highly useful and recommended. One of the useful items I noted about the chapters is that the author created a different EJB for each chapter instead of reusing one single one over and over. I found this very useful as an exercise. While this book covers a very complex topic, I found that the author managed keep the complexity of each chapter down to a good level. The material was covered in small chunks that will not overwhelm most users. I believe that Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans strikes the right mix between covering the theory, without swamping the reader with jargon and abstract topics. The Java 2 Enterprise Edition platform is an extremely rich and powerful API - but quite overwhelming for new users. Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans does an excellent job of teaching the basic fundamentals, and getting you up to speed on a complex topic. While you'll find the tutorial a good guide to the topic, the book also serves as a handy reference. I'll be keeping it within arms reach while working on EJB components and the Java 2 Enterprise Edition platform.-- Michael Reilly |
 Mastering
Enterprise JavaBeans, Experience level :
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