Customer Reviews

3-Tier Client/Server at Work

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Based on the other glowing reviews, I was eager to purchase the book. After it arrived and I actually read the material, it was a complete disapointment

Most of the book seems to be a plug for the author's company & software. The book provides an extremely narrow view of the client/server implementation alternatives. There is a relatively good section on TP monitor architecture, but it quickly moves on to 'how to do this with Tuxedo'.

I guess if you are using Tuxedo, this book might be pretty valuable.

Advice in the book was very basic, ranging from Hire good people to make sure you have enough money for the project. Now, that advice didn't offer any value to me. You'll have to judge for yourself.

Also, I expected the case studies to be presented with an analysis of the design, implementation and the issues present with different alternatives. My perception is that the case studies read like a chronology and offer very little value added insight into the 'why' and 'what if' or 'other alternatives might have been...'.

The exception is the case study created by an external company for the Wells Fargo implementation -- that was actually decent.

I would not recommend this book to any of my friends or business associates.

I've been programming for ten years, but I've never worked in an "enterprise" environment until now. I found this book to be a very accessible way to get my feet wet with the idea of 3-tier client server applications. Now I'm ready to go out and read a technical book on the subject. I consider it a good "3-tier programmer's kindergarten." The case studies definitely help make you understand the way these sorts of applications are done. I've always been fond of learning things by example, and this book does a good job of teaching by example. This is NOT a technical book. If you already understand 3-tier C/S programming, you don't need it. If your manager doesn't understand what the heck you're talking about, buy it for him/her.

Overall, this is a well-written book (though I stridently object to the overuse of the buzz-word 'architected', when other words like designed, created, or built are more appropriate, but that's the trend, I suppose...). "3-Tier Client/Server At Work" presents ten very useful case studies, and successfully finds common strategies among them for building 3-tier client/server systems.

The book begins with an explanation of the importance of a third tier to client/server computing. Part One focuses on a specific type of client/server computing (Transaction Processing) and a particular product (Tuxedo) to support that type of computing. Perhaps it's my own fault for not looking more carefully, but I sought a more comprehensive overview of available 'middleware', products and strategies, so I was disappointed (somewhat) with Part One.

Part Two, on the other hand, is a fantastic review of ten individual projects, and what engineers did to make them successful. The value, in my mind, of this section is that many of the important lessons are not strictly about 3-tier client/server computing, and, as such, are that much more useful. Throughout the case studies, Jeri Edwards enumerates the common strategies for successfully completing a software engineering project, like the importance of thoughtful design, completed well prior to any actual development.

The book closes with a higher-level review of the case studies, which I found to be useful following the detail of each case. Thanks to Jeri Edwards for 'giving birth' to this very handy book.

Excellent writing with easy to understand examples make this book "easy" to read. I was looking for an "under the hood" explanation of Tuxedo, and how PeopleSoft uses Tuxedo. This book delivered, plus more. The case studies of common business problems give the reader potential solutions for their own application development roadblocks.

It gives you a good bed-time reading for a couple of nights. There is no hard to understand theories. It begins with a couple of explainations of client/server trends and brings you right into the stories as it promised. You can't find a better story book(case study) for this price. In fact, there isn't even another one out there:(

If you are looking for an independent view of client server computing, you won't get it from BEA employee Edwards, who uses this book to evangelize Tuxedo, that rusting old TP monitor that her company sells.

3-tier client/server at wor