7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Easy to read, December 11, 2006
This review is from: Beginning EJB 3 Application Development: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) (Paperback)
This book is targeted at developers who are experienced with Java and have built multi-tier applications using earlier versions of EJB. In order to work out the examples in this book, you should be very proficient in using the command line and/or Ant. Working knowledge of the GlassFish application server is also needed.
If you have already worked with the previous versions of the EJB specifications and want to migrate to EJB3 - or even just want to find out how it works - this will be the perfect guide for you. The examples throughout the book should give the reader a very good understanding of EJB3. It should be easy to migrate your earlier versions of EJB applications to EJB3 with this book in your library.
The only issue I had with the book was with the build files (Ant scripts) provided. I have been using Ant for several years and didn't feel they were up to the level of the rest of the book. For example, the book suggests you set an environment variable for GLASSFISH_HOME, but this value isn't used in the build files: instead, a property is set in the properties file for chapter 1. If you skip reading the readme file (and who doesn't?), you will spend a lot of time probing what went wrong before you find it.
Once you finish reading this book, you will agree with me that the new EJB 3 specification (JSR-220) offers great improvements over the earlier EJB versions in terms of simplifying development, adding new features, facilitating test-driven development, and focusing more on POJOs rather than on complex APIs.
While the material covered in this book is outstanding, there are more mistakes than I would expect in the samples. On the other hand, the authors do have a link on the Apress web site for corrections. While working on the examples, I recommend you have a printed copy of these corrections. I would recommend this book to developers who want to migrate to EJB3 or those who want to build applications using this new simplified EJB3 architecture.
With EJB 3 gaining momentum, there are a number of books now available in the market. I read two of the books "Beginning EJB(tm) 3 Application Development: From Novice to Professional" from Apress and "Enterprise Java Beans 3.0, Fifth Edition"from O'Reilly.
If you have had previous experience with earlier versions of the EJB specification, or plan to migrate to the new spec, then the book "Beginning EJB(tm) 3 Application Development: From Novice to Professional" would be an excellent choice. On the other hand, if you would like to see what EJB 3.0 offers, "Enterprise Java Beans 3.0, Fifth Edition" sets the standard.
If technical material is of great importance, both books provide this equally well. However "Enterprise Java Beans 3.0, Fifth Edition " gets a little tedious if you continue reading for a long time when compared to "Beginning EJB(tm) 3 Application Development: From Novice to Professional". In contrast, if you want good working examples then I would suggest you look at "Enterprise Java Beans 3.0, Fifth Edition".
In conclusion, both books have some strong and weak points, get a book buddy or your colleague and buy both of them. That way, you get the benefits of both books.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It gets around to it..., April 10, 2007
This review is from: Beginning EJB 3 Application Development: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) (Paperback)
The book is a good summary of the specs and gives a nice introduction to the new things in the world of EJB 3. The section on converting your v2 apps to v3 was particularly useful. Appropriately marked "From Novice to Professional" the book touches on many aspects of the J2EE world in a manner that treats the novice with care and the professional with grace and insight/direction.
On the negative side... The book has a lot of repetition. Many pages are nearly identical (especially the sample building) and could have been condensed and made more useful by sticking to use of Ant and examination of the scripts. The same can be said for the "copy-and-paste nature" of some of the writing. However, one can tack that up to "consistency in writing style."
The book is not what I would call an "easy read," but was informative none-the-less. It serves as a starting point and base reference.
The authors have provided a generally well-rounded book and I would definitely recommend this to others.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A good book for developers with previous EJB experience, January 10, 2007
This review is from: Beginning EJB 3 Application Development: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) (Paperback)
I found this book very useful, but it is not for developers new to EJB. If you have a previous experience with EJB 2.x, this would be a very good choice. In my opinion, the coverage of the Java Persistence API (JPA) is a little bit shallow. I prefer Pro EJB 3: Java Persistence API by Mike Keith in JPA. Other than that, I found it a very good book specially the chapter that is talking about performance testing.
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