Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications [Paperback]

Michael Juntao Yuan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0131405306 | ISBN-13: 978-0131405301 | Publication Date: November 2, 2003 | Edition: 1

Mobile enterprise information systems will soon be one of the major applications of wireless technology. Java 2 Micro Edition is poised to be an important platform for developing wireless enterprise applications. Enterprise wireless applications allow workers to access crucial business information from any place at any time. This book covers the design, architecture, tools and development methodology for the Web Services that will be the killer app for this very promising platform. The author explains the value of mobile commerce and discusses architecture and system design considerations. This book explains not only API usages but also the designs behind the APIs so that you can learn how to extend those technologies for your custom requirements!

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Industrial-strength J2ME™ for enterprise developers, architects, and decision-makers

J2ME offers an extraordinarily flexible and robust platform for developing mobile applications with enterprise-class performance, reliability, and value. Now, leading mobile developer Michael Yuan covers every aspect of building industrial-strength applications with J2ME: design, architecture, tools, processes, business issues, and more.

Yuan introduces innovations that make the platform even more powerful, ranging from new J2ME profiles and wireless messaging APIs to mobile databases and web services tools. These innovations allow existing Java™ developers (especially J2EE™ developers) to leverage their skills and add mobility to enterprise applications. Yuan also presents more than a dozen complete sample applications—including the application that earned him the grand prize in Nextel, Sun, and Motorola’s nationwide wireless developer contest. Coverage includes:

• Patterns and best practices for building end-to-end mobile applications
• Emerging mobile “killer applications”: driving productivity and cost reduction
• “Smart client” applications: architecture and construction
• Advanced HTTP techniques for authentication and session tracking
• Overcoming hardware and network limitations
• Leading-edge mobile enterprise messaging techniques
• Mobile databases and synchronization engines
• XML and mobile web services, including the J2ME Web Services Optional Package
• New options for mobile security in the enterprise

About the Author

MICHAEL JUNTAO YUAN is a researcher, developer, author, and advocate for Java and open source technologies. He is a research associate at the Center for Research in Electronic Commerce at the University of Texas at Austin and the Wireless Java columnist for JavaWorld. Yuan won the 2002 Grand Prize in Nextel, Sun, and Motorola’s national J2ME application contest. Currently, he leads an effort in BuzzPhone.com to develop a series of official blueprint applications for Nokia.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (November 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131405306
• ISBN-13: 978-0131405301
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,240,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great survey of mobile technologies, January 30, 2004

By 

Dan (Boulder CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications (Paperback)

I go to Java Users Groups (yes, I'm struggling to get in touch with my inner geek) once every two or three months. Sometimes there's an engaging speaker, but most of the time the fellow up front looks like he's just swallowed a hot pepper, speaks like he has a permanent stutter, and answers questions like I'm speaking Greek. (I'm not making fun; I had a hard time when I was in front of a JUG too.) Regardless of the quality of the speaker, I gain something just by watching the presentation--he points out interesting technologies and usually has a list of resources at the end that I can use for further research.

I think Michael Yuan would be a great speaker at a JUG, as he seems to have a masterful understanding of Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME). However, the true value of his book, Enterprise J2ME, was in its introduction of new ideas and concepts, and the extensive resource listings. This book is a survey of the current state of the art in mobile java technology. Whatever your topic is, except for gaming development, you'll find some coverage here. Securing information on the device or network, XML parsing strategies, messaging architectures, and data synchronization issues are all some of the topics that Yuan covers.

My favorite chapter was Chapter 7, 'End to End Best Practices.' Here, Yuan covers some of the things he's learned in developing his own enterprise applications, and offers some solutions to five issues that differ between the J2ME world and the worlds familiar to most Java developers: J2EE and J2SE. He offers capsule solutions to the issues of "limited device hardware, slow unreliable networks, pervasive devices, ubiquitous integration [and] the impatient user." Later in the book, he explores various architectures to expand on some of these capsules.

However, the strength of this book, exposing the reader to a number of different mobile technologies, is also its weakness. JUG speakers very rarely dive into a technology to the point that I feel comfortable using it without additional research; I usually have to go home, download whatever package was presented, and play with it a bit to get a real feel for its usefulness. This book was much the same. Some of the chapters, like chapters 12 and 13, where issues with databases on mobile devices (CDC devices, not CLDC devices) weren't applicable to my kind of development, but you can hardly fault Yuan for that. Some of the later chapters felt like a series of 'hello world' applications for various vendors. This is especially true of chapter 12, and also of chapter 20, which is a collection of recipes for encryption on the device.

Additionally, I feel like some of the points he raised in Chapter 7 are never fully dealt with. An example of this is section 7.3.3, "Optimize for many devices." The project I'm on is struggling with this right now, but I had trouble finding any further advice on this important topic beyond this one paragraph section. However, these small issues don't take away from the overall usefulness of the book--if you are developing enterprise software, you'll learn enough from this book to make its purchase worthwhile.

However, I wouldn't buy the book if you're trying to learn J2ME. Yuan gives a small tutorial on basic J2ME development in Appendix A, but you really need an entire book to learn the various packages, processes and UI concerns of J2ME, whether or not you have previously programmed in Java. Additionally, if you're trying to program a standalone game, this book isn't going to have a lot to offer you, since Yuan doesn't spend a lot of time focused on UI concerns and phone compatibility issues. Some of the best practices about limited hardware may be worth reading, and if it's a networked game, however, you may gain from his discussions in Chapter 6, "Advanced HTTP Techniques." In general though, I'm not sure there's enough to make it worth a game developer's while.

I bought this book because I'm working on a networked J2ME application, and it stands alone in its discussion of the complex architectural issues that such applications face. It covers more than that, and isn't perfect, but it is well worth the money, should you be facing the kind of problems I am. Indeed, I wish I had had this book months ago, as I'm sure it would have improved the my current application.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Emphasis of J2ME is shifting to the server, November 25, 2003

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications (Paperback)

The substance of this book bodes well for the future of J2ME. As you may known, there have been several books on J2ME published in the last year. Like "Java Development on PDAs" by Wilding-McBride. For the most part, these have been aimed at someone completely new to J2ME development. They have tended to focus on the client side, because this is more tangible and easier to explain.

Here Yuan shifts the focus to the server side. He does have screen shots of some client UIs and related code. But the bulk of the discussion moves to server related issues, like how can you sync to a database, or how to send SMS messages in a network. You can consider the book to be focused on connectivity. Not at the lowest level of network connections, but at a higher conceptual level of hooking to existing applications.

In part, this is because UI capabilities are much more limited compared to those on a full Java desktop or even a laptop. But it is mostly because the bigger value is in building logic on the server.

Sound familiar? Mainstream java traced this route from applet development in 1996 to, a few years later, J2EE/XML on the server, when people realised that is where java is best suited. In about half the time, J2ME is walking down the same path. Yuan does not suggest this, but the impression I got from the book is that in a few more years, if J2ME is running on a server that is not as resource constained as its clients, then it may be replaced by J2EE. It seems that if server side J2ME is to prosper, it may be only on very physically limited servers.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The coverage of the book, October 24, 2004

By 

Juntao Yuan (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications (Paperback)

I just feel compelled to respond to Mr. Faria's negative and factually inaccurate comments about the content of the book -- especially the database chapter.

First of all, the book has 4 chapters on mobile databases. There are 65 pages in them. Only 7 pages cover the JDBC introduction and they are focused on the J2ME version of JDBC. The rest 58 pages cover the data access and synchronization strategies and APIs for leading mobile databases. Those APIs are often NOT JDBC-compatible. There are also several example mobile database applications as well as system design suggestions.

Can you find most of the information by searching google and reading product manuals? Yes, you can, if you have a lot of time. The value of the book is to save the reader time.