EJB 3 in Action [Paperback]

Debu Panda (Author), Reza Rahman (Author), Derek Lane (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1933988347 | ISBN-13: 978-1933988344 | Publication Date: April 16, 2007 | Edition: 1

EJB 3 in Action tackles EJB 3 and the Java Persistence API head-on, providing practical code samples, real-life scenarios, best practices, design patterns, and performance tuning tips. This book builds on the contributions and strengths of seminal technologies like Spring, Hibernate, and TopLink.

EJB 3 is the most important innovation introduced in Java EE 5.0. EJB 3 simplifies enterprise development, abandoning the complex EJB 2.x model in favor of a lightweight POJO framework. The new API represents a fresh perspective on EJB without sacrificing the mission of enabling business application developers to create robust, scalable, standards-based solutions.

EJB 3 in Action is a fast-paced tutorial, geared toward helping you learn EJB 3 and the Java Persistence API quickly and easily. For newcomers to EJB, this book provides a solid foundation in EJB. For the developer moving to EJB 3 from EJB 2, this book addresses the changes both in the EJB API and in the way the developer should approach EJB and persistence.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Derek Lane has over 17 years of professional software experience as an architect, manager, designer, analyst, developer and teacher. He has a versatile technical background and a passion for exploring new technologies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 712 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; 1 edition (April 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933988347
• ISBN-13: 978-1933988344
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #81 in Books > Business & Investing > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > New Business Enterprises

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the ejb book - full of practical examples, May 13, 2007

By 

Jeanne Boyarsky (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: EJB 3 in Action (Paperback)

"EJB 3 in Action" manages to be an excellent read for both people new to EJB and people who have been using EJB 2.X. There are side notes throughout about significant changes from EJB 2.X. For larger topics that someone new to EJB 2.X might not know, the topic is covered in the appendix. The examples are interesting and well written, so it isn't boring reading about the purpose of a session bean if you already know it.

What really impressed me were the differences between this book and Sun's J2EE tutorial. The majority of examples used Java 5 syntax (for looping and the like.) This made the examples feel like EJB 3 examples rather than an old book robotically updated. Further, the authors explain when to use a deployment descriptor vs annotations. Sun sticks to the party line and barely mentions the deployment descriptor. The "EJB 3 in Action" approach is much more useful for gaining practical advice.

Best practices are described throughout. The authors don't assume you know Java 5 features and explain them as necessary. All the expected topics are covered. Additionally, there are chapters on Spring integration and migrating from EJB 2.X. The examples are app server agnostic, but they show you how to use one in the appendix. Finally, the appendixes provide an excellent reference for both the annotations and deployment descriptor.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Convincing introduction to EJB3, June 27, 2007

By 

Bas Vodde (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: EJB 3 in Action (Paperback)

As many of you, I was and am very skeptical about EJBs. They have complicated the enterprise world and haven't really delivered on their promise. Now there is EJB3. When starting the book, I just had one question: Did they "fixed it". After reading this very convincing book, my tentative answer would be: Yes.

"EJB3 in Action" is an easy to read and easy to understand introduction to EJB3. The book doesn't require you to know too much other topics and starts from the beginning. It starts with giving an overview of everything and then from there moves into the different bean types. From there it'll just in the more advanced topics.

One of the things I really liked about the book is that it really tries to answer the questions which I think much of the readers have. Questions like: Why would I use EJB3, I just stopped using EJBs. Can I combine EJBs with spring and how? These are exactly the type of questions people will want answered.

I'm not a EJB expert at all. However, I found the book easy to read and enjoyable. I've learned a lot from the authors while reading the book. I'd recommend it for everyone who wants to know more about EJB3. Great job!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you ever wanted to know about EJB3, November 25, 2008

By 

R. Gomez (Winchester, KY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: EJB 3 in Action (Paperback)

Having struggled with the complexities and problems of EJB 1 and 2 (most java programmers I talked to doing large EJB projects, for example, stay clear from using entity beans), I was really drawn to the advantages of EJB3 as described in the first chapter of "EJB3 in Action". The book's next 2 chapters, in keeping true to the title of the book, provide a whirlwind tour that shows EJB3 in action. I soon became an evangelist for EJB3 recommending it to my work colleagues where we subsequently upgraded to WebLogic 10 with plans to upgrade our java projects from EJB2 to EJB3.

The book is well written and presents an in-depth and thorough discussion of the EJB3 architecture. Of special note is the fact that all java beans in EJB3 are written as POJO's and defined in terms of annotations. I only wish there were a few chapters on how to effectively leverage JUnit (vs. Cactus) to make unit testing easier.

A fair share of the book is devoted to lucidly describing the persistence API and corresponding concepts dealing with object relational mapping that have promised to address and minimize the complexities and performance issues that have discouraged many a java programmer from tackling the entity beans of EJB2/3.

The book also deals with practical issues such as packaging your EJB3 applications, performance tuning, upgrading from EJB2 to EJB3 and exposing EJBs as web services. There is even a chapter devoted to using EJB3 with the Spring framework.

There are plenty of source code examples in the book which you can download online, tailored for Sun's Glassfish application server, as well as those from Oracle and JBoss.

I recommend this book highly for anyone who is considering moving up to EJB3 and wanting a clear, concise and well written book on the topic.