Building Java Enterprise Systems with J2EE [Paperback]

Paul Perrone (Author), Venkata S.R.K.R. Chaganti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 7, 2000 | Series: Sams Professional

The practical angle of Building Java Enterprise Systems with J2EE provides the conceptual background and wealth of code examples needed to actually assemble systems in a useful manner with the J2EE technologies. Furthermore, this book demonstrates how the technologies complement and build on top of one another via evolution of a cohesive and real sample application. You can use this book to learn, develop, and design your custom applications immediately.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The practical angle of Building Java Enterprise Systems with J2EE provides the conceptual background and wealth of code examples needed to actually assemble systems in a useful manner with the J2EE technologies. Furthermore, this book demonstrates how the technologies complement and build on top of one another via evolution of a cohesive and real sample application. You can use this book to learn, develop, and design your custom applications immediately.

About the Author

Paul J. Perrone is a professional Java/CORBA/C++ developer and Software Consultant for Assured Technologies, Inc. where he provides practical software consulting, products, and research for companies interested in scalable and distributed enterprise systems. Paul has been a key player in the architecture, design, and development of numerous successfully deployed large-scale n-tier distributed enterprise systems and products. Krishna Chaganti is a professional software designer and developer with more than 8 years' of experience in developing distributed computing software solutions for a variety of corporations and organizations. He has also served as an instructor of Java programming techniques for two years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1500 pages
• Publisher: Sams (June 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672317958
• ISBN-13: 978-0672317958
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,912,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars NOT THE JAVA ARCHITECTURAL REFERENCE THAT I WANTED, November 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Java Enterprise Systems with J2EE (Paperback)

The authors deserve an "A" for effort (but much lower for usefulness). They wrote 1300+ pages and tried to cover every aspect of Enterprise Java Development: every major Java API, tie-ins/comparisons to CORBA and COM/COM+, etc. In the areas where I already had a deep understanding, I never found any factual problems with what the authors were presenting. Certainly, there are books that cover individual topics (JSP, Servlets, EJB) in more depth but the sections here are respectable.

I was disappointed because I was looking for solid direction on architecting Java Enterprise Applications. The book constantly presents what a Java API (or CORBA model, etc.) can do for you. Only in a few instances does it clearly help you weigh the strengths/weaknesses of alternative approaches to solve a problem. It regularly presents a whole series of "solutions" (i.e. Java support for x, y, z) but it fails to tell you that Solution A would be required in most J2EE development projects while Solution B would generally be used to solve a particular niche problem.

What you are left with is an overload of information but nowhere to "store" the information in your mind (e.g. I should use this API or class to solve this type of problem). I give two sample areas below where I read the book hoping for much but feeling empty-handed when I'd read the material. Only when I later read better (and often shorter) articles on the topic later did I come to truly understand the "real" issues.

EXAMPLE 1, SECURITY: There are three chapters covering 100 pages on security. Having read them, I felt like I knew very little more about how one could/should implement security on a J2EE project. Having read the three chapters, I still didn't know: a) what aspects of security would I typically need to implement on a J2EE web application? (hundreds of options were presented - surely some are "core" to typical projects while others might apply to very particular situations while others are available are not used in industry) b) does a typical application server supporting J2EE model provide me with all I'd need for security/authentication or would I typically need other packages/custom code to augment what is provided (in fact, I've since learned that there are definite gaps to be filled but in all mess of saying "what is available" in J2EE, the authors don't articulate the clear gaps).

EXAMPLE 2, XML PARSING: The authors present the main models for XML parsing (SAX and DOM). They spend 30 pages diving into the details of using the two models. However, after reading them, I only get the sense that they are two alternate ways of reading XML documents. Their discussion didn't tell me: Conceptually, how does each model work? What is the fundamental difference between the two? When would I use one vs. the other? I have since read an article introduction that in three paragraphs gave me a clear conceptual picture of how the two models worked and when I'd use one vs. the other. Now I might be ready to understand what the authors wrote but, at the time, my eyes glazed over.

In conclusion, I cannot offer a suggestion for a better book on architecting Java applications (I've certainly looked). Right now, it seems like one needs to research particular articles that will address specific aspects of the Java articles (and be prepared to spend a lot of time doing so). This book has a lot of useful Java reference information but it is not the consolidated Java architectural reference that I was hoping for.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars J2EE AT ITS BEST, June 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Java Enterprise Systems with J2EE (Paperback)

I found that this is the only book which covers all J2EE APIs at great length and with real world working examples. I am impressed by the way the authors explained the various aspects of J2EE APIs Servlets, JSP, JMS, EJB, JNDI, RMI-IIOP and deploying in two different Application Servers (J2EE RI and Weblogic 5.1). The chapters are put together in a very well organized manner. At the end of the book, there is a working version of online Store using all the J2EE technologies, which I found very useful. The material is clear and straight forward. The book covers the interests ranging from novice to expert Java Developer. The books has lot of pages like other java books, the difference is that the book does not waste any page to show api. Overall this book is a very good book for a J2EE Developer.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall J2EE coverage, could have been more focused, June 18, 2000

By 

Eric L. Ma - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Java Enterprise Systems with J2EE (Paperback)

Overall this is a useful book for J2EE developers. I specially like the integrated e-commerce sample, which was developed and is targeted for deployment using WebLogic 5.1 and Oracle 8i (both are real-world technology of choice by major companies), and this alone makes the book unique. This is accompanied by detailed instructions at the end of book for setting up the environment for running the sample application. The CD even includes an evaluation copy of the WebLogic Web Server 5.1.

Since the previous reviewer has already pointed out that this book covers all J2EE related topics, I don't need to repeat them here. Another unique feature of this book is that it also covers Microsoft's DCOM technology and its version of Java, and briefly mentioned how to integrate DCOM into J2EE apps.

My biggest complain about this book is that while trying to be comprehensive and make this as a single-volume reference source for J2EE, the authors actually sacrificed to some degree the focus of the book and omitted certain would-have-been very useful details. I would like to see basic information on HTML, TCP/IP, HTTP, web secutiry, OOD, Java fundamentals, client-side Java, CGI, and basic RDBMS/SQL content (13 out of 38 chapters) removed from the book. I my opinion these are prerequisite knowledge for any J2EE developer and are better left for other books. Instead of those topics, I would like to see more pages added to explain the code of the integrated sample (for example an explanation of the overall architecture and design decisions). Also, I think the book's repeated use of class diagrams to show Java class API is over-done.

Being the first book available on the market that toughs upon all aspects of J2EE, this book definitely has its value, even though there are obvious shortcomings. One final thing, this book is more about an overall picture of J2EE, not so much about every single detail of its component technologies. Therefore, if you are looking for a book on a specific topic, such as JSP, servlets, EJB, there are better books for them.