Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best AOP book I have seen so far, May 11, 2004
This review is from: Aspectj in Action: Practical Aspect-Oriented Programming (Paperback)
I have got this book at local Austin Java User Group meeting. First impression: different cover. Most of Manning books are either greenish or almost black-and-white. This one is yellow. Part 1 provides really good introduction into AOP. This is the first book I have read on AOP; all stuff I have seen before was online or magazine articles. One interesting fact is that this book took a while to consume, compared to the usual two-week cycle I have for technical books. I guess the reason is that the book has more substance than most of the techincal books and Mannigs does not try to pad their books with API references and other stuff that can be easily found online. After the chapter goes through AOP concepts, it explains AspectJ in application to those concepts. Basic syntax as well as some advanced techniques are explained. Part 2 has examples of basic applications of AspectJ. Of course it starts with the mandatory logging implemented using AOP. Not a very good example in general, since logging is not really a cross-cutting concern, but works for illustration purposes. Other two application areas discussed in this part are implementation policy enforcement and optimization (pooling and caching examples). Policy enorcement part is really interesting, especially if you are into call patterns. In general, every part follows the same pattern: first the author discusses the conventional approach, then explains challenges of the conventional solution, provides AspectJ-based solution, and gives one or two examples. Very clean language, easy to follow. Part 3 discusses advanced applications of AspectJ. First it delves into design patterns and idioms of AOP; it's not by any means AspectJ-specific, so would be useful for any AOP implementation. Examples of patterns are providing thread-safe implementations using AspectJ, implementing security (very interesting discussion on JAAS), transaction management, and implementing business rules using AspectJ. The part ends with AspectJ usage in different development phases. Two appendices: description of AspectJ compiler and Ant integration - only 15 pages for both. Useful as a reference. Overall impression: an excellent book. Definitely worth reading, even if you are not into AOP yet.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From basics to design patterns, October 20, 2003
This review is from: Aspectj in Action: Practical Aspect-Oriented Programming (Paperback)
Ramnivas Laddad wrote a comprehensive book on AOP with the focus on AspectJ. He deals with AOP and AspectJ basics, explains the (sometimes fine) differences in advice declarations, and cleans up the myths and prejudices on AOP. Going further Ramnivas uses real-life examples to show step by step how to use Aspects in your daily work. He explains how to transform a pure Java based solution to a cleaner, more structured AspectJ solution. The reader can see that the AspectJ solution is more elegant and can always understand how Ramnivas came to his solutions. Ramnivas explains this for cruicial topics most developers have to face, for example logging or thread safety. Special bonus is the chapter on aspect design patterns. Ramnivas shows four design patterns, that don't exist in the non-AOP world. They are quite useful in AOP, though, and AFAIK there is no other source for this important information. "AspectJ in action" is a book for beginners as well as for advanced AspectJ programmers. It is well written and easy to understand. The real-world examples allow you to transfer the solutions on a 1:1 basis to your project and thus try in real life how aspects work for you.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real uses for AOP, August 9, 2004
This review is from: Aspectj in Action: Practical Aspect-Oriented Programming (Paperback)
I met the author of this book this weekend, and saw him give a presentation on this material. Finally, a book that shows real uses for AOP.
I have been watching AspectJ since I first saw it about a year ago. My first impression was that it was 'cool', but was worried about giving developers more rope with which to hang themselves. Yes, it was cool, but the most practical examples you would see in demos were thing like 'logging'. I was worried that it would just lead more more ways for junior engineers to 'convolute the code', without bringing much benefit for that risk.
The material in this book, ALONG WITH the support the author had from the Eclipse IDE changed my mind. Finally, there were some real examples involving transaction support, JAAS, exception handling, and more. Furthermore, he addressed these topics in the real-world sense of refactoring existing code to prove his points.
If you aren't using an IDE that gives you some support, then I still have my concerns about 'convoluting' your code; but I am more convinced than ever that AOP concepts are worth putting into my mental toolkit. I have no doubt that the way aspects 'inject' behavior into code will reduce our development time, and make our code behave more consistently (no errors because of inconsistencies in the way common things are handled). If you can add one more ball to the things you 'mentally juggle' while developing, add AOP concepts. This book will help.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
