Customer Reviews

Cocoon: Building XML Applications

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cocoon is an open source product that is part of the Apache XML project. It enables the construction of web sites using Java Servlet technology, XML, and XSL. The Cocoon 2 platform is a major architectural change from the original platform. This book covers the new platform very thoroughly. The contents start with an overview of Internet Applications from a historical perspective and moves towards the prospect of empowering applications with XML. There is of course the obligatory chapter on installation of the required products. The fourth chapter is a focal point in the early part of the book, in that it covers Cocoon in such a way that a technical reader can gain enough insight to determine if he wishes to pursue it further. Cocoon is significantly different from JSP and Model 2 architecture.

The book follows the path of exploring Cocoon with progressively increasing depth. A web portal application is developed in the book, using Cocoon. It starts very simply, but impressively by providing RSS news feeds from content providers on the Internet. As more of Cocoon is revealed, functionality is added to the application, like SQL inquiries and finally XSP.

The authors cover the Avalon Component Model that Cocoon is based on, the internals of Cocoon, and how to develop your own components for Cocoon using Java. While a lot can be done with Cocoon without writing Java, knowledge of XML and XSLT is a must.

There are not a lot books or articles on Cocoon. This book makes a great step in filling that void and would be a valued resource for anyone interested in what Cocoon can deliver.

I'm a Cocoon newbie (at the time of this writing, but not for long!) and this book explains very clearly how to build powerful applications easily. Cocoon is a very slick framework that has no competition that I know of - and it should be in the toolset of all J2EE application developers.

I am refactoring a project to use Cocoon, and this book gave me the time-saving edge I needed to jump head-first into a new framework that normally would have taken weeks to delve into on my own.

I was happy with this book after reading the first few chapters however after I got stuck into Cocoon I discovered that it was not suitable as a reference. I couldn't find information on XML fragments or i18n. The index isn't good at all. The information may be in there but you will have to read the book from cover to cover to get value from it. I would recommend going for the Cocoon Developers Handbook.

~There is introduction on Internet and XML up to page 48. Who needs an introduction of Internet and XML if he is trying to work on Cocoon? Does that introduction helpful if one has no knowledge of Internet or XML anyway?

There are appendix from page 343 to the end, page 480, that's 137 pages, plus 48 pages, totally 185 pages is basicly nothing. So you got less than 300 pages left maybe useful.

I buy this book since there are only 3 books about Cocoon in the market. Now I am a bit regret.A~~ good developer does not mean a good author.~

Please please please... if any author wants to write another cocoon book make it as updated as you can. I got two cocoon books (I guess everyone knows what they are since there aint a lot of them around!). In a weeks time I was up and running. But then it was announced XMLForm and JXForms have been removed from the 2.1.x distribution flushing all efforts down the drain. Dont get me wrong. Good books... Only outdated.

This book is a must have for anyone who is not satisfied with the documentation that comes with Cocoon. Other than a few typos, most notably in the source code examples (missing tag slashes and mis-named XML tags that may just be from previous versions), this book is excellent.

If you want to really understand the power of Cocoon, this book is perfect. These two authors really know their stuff. Their detailed coverage of the sitemap and easy to follow examples make Cocoon much easier to understand. I could use more comments in the XML source code to help me understand the XSL files better, but I guess another book will cover that! Excellent book.

Maybe I wouldn't write this review if Matthew and Carsten weren't my colleagues. But I certainly wouldn't write this review if I didn't like the book.
Carsten is certainly among the most knowledgables about Cocoon and this clearly shows in the book. Yet the authors are able to first explain the basic principles to the beginner without getting lost in too many details.
You have to be patient though to come to the meat to grasp the full power of the sitemap. But then especially the examples are very insightful.
The newly available authentication and portal components are not covered in this book. But the authors (they created these components) put an article online at [URL].
I also like the authors' point of view of creating complete publishing applications without writing a single line of Java code. You need to have a working knowledge of XSLT however.
In later chapters every detail of extending Cocoon with your own cutom components is explained.
I for myself, already having almost one year of Cocoon experience found an invaluable source of information in this book.

I have read the book with great pleasure and it's clear that the autors are experts on the subject.
The book start with a few more general chapters. Even experienced web developers can use these to get a better feel with the filosophy behind the Cocoon concept.
The middel part uses a lot of real life samples, one of them is a true portal, and is super for cocoon users. Some really great tricks are used in the samples that even experienced Cocoon users can appreciate.
The second half of the book is about developing Cocoon components. The language used is very clear so the book is never boring.
Very much recommended!

Excellent book!. Introduces Cocoon as a web publishing (and integration) framework that it is. Shows nicely how to use xml-based technology to create web-sites like portals that integrate external and internal data sources without writing any java code. But the book also explains the internals of Cocoon for java developers so that those who want to extend its functionality can do so (by writing appropriate java modules). Overall it made me understand the -significant- powers of the cocoon project and its overall scope too. So, to recap, the book is very easy to read if you have basic knowledge of xml and java, and it explains what you can and cannot do with cocoon: a framework for building web-sites that mostly deal with publishing documents. In that sense, cocoon can be used to create robust portals or document management systems or even more general content management systems (Lenya).

This was my first Cocoon book. I consider myself a relative newcomer to the Java and XML world, and I found this book easy to read and informative over a range of topics relating to Cocoon 2.

The book provides samples and three chapters are devoted to building an application using the concepts presented in the text.

If you are new, I think 75% of this book will be readily understandable. The rest can be skimmed and read later after you've gained a more thorough knowledge of software development in general. That said, a quick introduction to XML is provided.

I gave the book four stars because I thought they could have been more explicit and extensive in their examples.

If you are new, you'll be okay. If you are a seasoned programmer wanting to learn Cocoon 2, you will not be disappointed.