Customer Reviews

Building Web Services with Java: Making Sense of XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I've been thoroughly impressed with this book. It throws a wide net over most of the current web services standards and technologies, and gives you at least an understanding of where they all fit, while still providing you with enough depth on the crucial ones (SOAP (with Axis), UDDI, etc.) so that you can get started with real projects.

I particularly liked the way in which the authors have created an all-in-one reference book on the most important web services technologies. For instance, I've never been able to read SOAP messages without having a reference on XML namespaces and XML schemas handy -- no more -- it's all here in this book.

The coverage of the new Apache Axis project is especially good; not only does it explain the advantages of the new architecture for handling SOAP headers, but it gives code examples for making use of these new features. This is to be expected, since many of the authors of this book are major contributors to the Axis project.

I also found the chapters on Web Services security and UDDI to be helpful and enlightening. While all of the chapters in the book don't live up to the promise of these excellent chapters, it's still overall an great introduction to this new set of technologies.

And by the way, the guy that gave the book 1 star because it has "no source code downloadable" should have first tried going to www.samspublishing.com and done a search on the author's names -- the page for the book CLEARLY has a section for "downloads" where you can get the source code.

This book can be summed up in one word: bloated. It is too heavy and based on theory rather than real-world examples and summarized concepts. I am a product developer in the working world, and I simply don't have time to churn through this huge book. The only chapter that was slightly relevant was the one on Apache Axis. If you want to learn the ins and outs of web services from a theoretical and architectural standpoint, this might be your book. Otherwise I would go with another book if you want working examples and concise writing.

This is by far the best book on Web services I have read! There are so many good things going for it. Let's start with the authoring team. I did some research on the Web: three members of the W3C Working Group on XML Protocol (next-generation SOAP), two co-authors of the UDDI specifications, two architects of the next-generation Apache Web services engine (Axis). These people know what they are talking about from both a theoretical and practical standpoint. The book addresses all levels of the Web services technology stack with amazing focus and depth. This book does not just regurgitate the specifications--it goes well beyond them to cover adjacent domains that are relevant. With the knowledge that I have gained from reading this book I feel I am in a much better position to analyze my web services needs, design a service architecture and implement the services necessary to bring it to life. Most importantly, I feel like I have learned how to evaluate the inevitable trade-offs I'll have to make doing real-world development. There are so many examples of this... Chapter 3 does an excellent job of comparing and contrasting RPC-oriented Web services with document (messaging) oriented Web services. This is the kind of out-of-the-ordinary material that imparts truly valuable knowledge on the reader, stuff you will not find while reading the bare specs or one of the quickly hacked together books on Web services. Chapter 5 talks a lot about security, an otherwise missing topic in the Web services space, and about enterprise-quality Web services. I learned some things about configuring application server security that I had missed after two years of J2EE development. In short, this book is a must-read for both beginning and experienced Web services developers and anyone interested in better understanding the space. If you're a pro, you will learn a lot from the realistic examples and the authors' real-world experience. If you're a beginner, do not despair. Chapter 1 makes the drive towards Web services easy to understand by exposing the technology and market forces behind the rapid change the industry is going through. Chapter 2 is the best, simplest, most focused introduction to data-oriented uses of XML I have ever seen. After these two, you'll be all set for tackling the rest of the book. As for me, I'll go study the example code now...

Best book on Web Services and related concepts. Gives a great overview of all related issues (security, asynch messaging etc.) instead of just the same old java/wsdl/uddi seen in most books.

The Axis portion seems to be outdated though. The latest axis release has a whole different configuration mechanism. But does a great job at explaining the architecture. Very useful. The docs on apache's website are quite thin.

"Web Services" promise to do for interconnected business applications what the traditional web has done for information browsing. Business relationships will be formed and applications interconnected dynamically and automatically: for example, your computer system may arrange automatically to ship packages using a carrier with which you have never done business. Web Services define the standards that will facilitate such communication. In the meantime, before that ambitious vision becomes a reality, the building blocks of Web Services are already being used to connect systems within individual organizations. If you want to know what Web Services can do today, and what's likely to be possible in the future, this book is an excellent place to start.

There are quite a few books that tell you how to use one aspect or another of Web Services technology, but this one tells you why as well as how. The authors are experts in the field, and they write well. The book opens with a comprehensive and thought provoking introduction to the business and technology changes that have motivated the tremendous surge of interest in Web Services. In later sections, both novice and expert programmers will find lots of useful detail on getting started, on putting together the piece parts (XML, SOAP, etc.), and on building realistic sample applications. I have worked on Web Services technologies for nearly three years, and I learned a great deal.

Whether your interest is in programming Web Services, in using technologies like XML or SOAP, or just in understanding why Web Services are generating so much excitement, I highly recommend this book.

I do not dispute the view that this may be one of the best books
on web services.Yet I have a suggestion to make.The chapters are too long.People like me,who read from cover to cover,would have prefered,say,three chapters on SOAP,WSDL,UDDI,and then and only then three more chapters on Advanced SOAP,Advanced WSDL,and Advanced UDDI.For people who do not read from cover to cover or who would use this book as a reference,this may not be so critical.

This book is unique in the sense that it takes an evolutionary approach to web services by considering where web services came from and where they are going.In this context,the last chapter on the future directions of web services is a very good quo vadis chapter.

It is very unfortunate that most popular books on computers take the opposite approach as if new ideas have no fathers and no sons.This is very dangerous because such an approach can only produce sterile bastards in name of new ideas.

I generally do not review books but with this first review I want to start breaking this rule.

This book is well written, consise, and complete. I'm usually pretty skeptical of SAMS and WROX, and usually stick to O'Reilly books, but this one blows away O'Reilly's SOAP.

One thing to keep in mind though (some may find this a good point, some a bad point) is that it uses AXIS, the Apache SOAP 3 implementation, which is just in alpha release. I personally like that it's using axis. Much better than soap 2.

Still a good reference. Funny someone wrote they had yet to find anything of value in it because just the other day I needed a concise review of XML schema. I found the XML primer from this book to be the best most clearly written explanation I had seen. And it cover a lot of ground in relatively few pages. Giving a book 1 star because it is dated is near sighted. Yes, look at the publication dates because things change fast. But when this book came out it was one of the better ones and so I think the authors deserve credit for that. It offers a nice explanation of the layers of web services, the various components that work together. While some things change, many things really just grow more complex and the latest explanation may not be the best. I can see dropping it a star but a good resource it was and still is as i noted.

I was thinking about the value of older computer books the other day and I realized, sometimes the perspective is different in an older book so things that are no longer explained much are discussed with more detail. For example, a 1996 book on learning Java is obviously of no value, right? Well I thought so also. Then as i was going to toss it, I read the last chapter describing in great detail how Java works under the hood. I have NEVER seen such a complete techincal discussion down to the bits and bytes in any other book. And those things are still true today. So an older book can go into details you may not find in a new book because things taken for granted now were being explained for the first time then. Keep the better older ones, they can still help you as this one did me.

As the reader from San Mateo stated, the Axis part in this book is indeed very out-dated. In fact, the sample code won't even compile without major tweaking if the current axis-beta2 should be used. It's quite disappointing that the book's website does not provide errata or any update on the sample code. However, I found the Wrox Axis book, which is based on axis-beta1, make a nice complement.

This book is very much outdated. The content needs a revision ! Why not the authors update the book content and dump it in serverside.com to satisfy the late buyers like me ? It would be a great help.