42 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Well written but of little actual value, February 3, 2005
This review is from: Effective Enterprise Java (Paperback)
I feel kind of lonely here; everyone else seemed to love this book. Looking at the table of contents, I was very excited when I started reading the book. However, while reading it cover to cover I slowly became more and more dis-illusioned with it.
The book is divided up into a number of recommendations, called items, in a manor similar to Effective C++ and Practical Java. The problem is that most of the items appear to fall into one of a few general catagories:
1) Intro level generalities of good design for the web.
e.g.
- pass data in bulk - multiple asynchronous calls out of process are more expensive than one big call
- make deployment as simple as possible - exactly what it says!
- use HttpSession sparingly - this is web application design 101
- always validate user input - my personal favorite; who today is not validating user input received from the web?
2) Using a pair of items to represent a classic design best practice.
e.g.
- Lazy-load infrequently used data & Eager-load frequently used data
- Consider using optimistic concurrency for better scalability & Consider using pessimistic concurrency for explicit concurrency control
3) Re-statements of some of the principals of secure coding
e.g.
- Security is a process, not a product
- Remember that security is not just prevention, aka "fail securely"
- Assume insecurity, aka "grant minimal trust necessary"
- Establish a threat model
My copy of this book has long been in the trash. Save your money. Here are a couple of free online articles to get you started:
Secure coding: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1596
Article on stopping SQL injection: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1768
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book and worthy successor in a wonderful series, November 27, 2004
This review is from: Effective Enterprise Java (Paperback)
This is an amazing book that does not disappoint in any way. It is full of wonderful well-written content. The book is organized as a series of 75 essays, each running from 1 to 10 pages. Each essay gives advice on what to do or not do in an enterprise Java application.
Since I'm not a fan of Enterprise JavaBeans, before I received the book I was worried that the "enterprise" in the title might mean the book was focused on concerns of EJB developers. That isn't the case at all and the vast majority of the book is absolutely applicable if you avoid EJB in favor of lighter-weight frameworks such as Sping.
Recently I was working with a team whose application was running out of memory and causing their application server to crash, sometimes in as little as an hour. With the help of this book's sections on the garbage collector they were able to identify and resolve the problems within a day, which was much shorter than everyone had expected.
This book is a wonderful successor to Scott Meyers' "Effective C++" and I recommend it highly.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Effective, Efficient and Convenient, October 25, 2004
This review is from: Effective Enterprise Java (Paperback)
If you have had a chance to see Ted speak, you have a sense of what to expect from this book: insight, amusement and a touch of controversy. Seasoned professionals will find themselves nodding at most of the items in this book. Folks from the trenches knowing this material is good news however; you wouldn't want to be faced with a deluge of maverick advice in something donning the title "Effective". What those types of engineers will find so useful is the convenient collection and organization of advice with which they can efficiently reassess their designs, communicate with peers, etc. Far from being a simple collection of didactic nuggets, however, there is exposition and justification behind the suggestions Ted makes. More junior engineers will find a series of rungs and footholds with which to scale the wall of enterprise Java. Beyond reading techniques that make sense and learning new approaches to solving common Enterprise problems, chances are your conventional wisdom will be challenged by at least one of the recommendations (like #11 did to me).
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