Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Rod Johnson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1861007841 | ISBN-13: 978-1861007841 | Publication Date: October 2002 | Edition: 1st

The results of using J2EE in practice are often disappointing: applications are often slow, unduly complex, and take too long to develop. Rod Johnson believes that the problem lies not in J2EE itself, but in that it is often used badly. Many J2EE publications advocate approaches that, while fine in theory, often fail in reality, or deliver no real business value.

Expert One-on-One: J2EE Design and Development aims to demystify J2EE development. Using a practical focus, it shows how to use J2EE technologies to reduce, rather than increase, complexity. Rod draws on his experience of designing successful high-volume J2EE applications and salvaging failing projects, as well as intimate knowledge of the J2EE specifications, to offer a real-world, how-to guide on how you too can make J2EE work in practice.

It will help you to solve common problems with J2EE and avoid the expensive mistakes often made in J2EE projects. It will guide you through the complexity of the J2EE services and APIs to enable you to build the simplest possible solution, on time and on budget. Rod takes a practical, pragmatic approach, questioning J2EE orthodoxy where it has failed to deliver results in practice and instead suggesting effective, proven approaches.

This book is of value to most enterprise developers. Although some of the discussion (for example, on performance and scalability) will be most relevant to architects and lead developers, the practical focus makes it useful to anyone with some familiarity with J2EE. Because of the complete design-deployment coverage, a less advanced developer could work through the book along with a more introductory text, and successfully build and understand the sample application. This comprehensive coverage would also be useful to developers in smaller organisations, who might be called upon to fill several normally distinct roles.

Over the course of the book, you will learn:

When to use a distributed architecture
When and how to use EJB
How to develop an efficient data access strategy
How to design a clean and maintainable web interface
How to design J2EE applications for performance

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

It does not just discuss technology, but stress its practical application. The book is driven from the need to solve common tasks, rather than by the elements of J2EE.

It discuss risks in J2EE development
It takes the reader through the entire design, development and build process of a non-trivial application. This wouldn't be compressed into one or two chapters, like the Java Pet Store, but would be a realistic example comparable to the complexity of applications readers would need to build
At each point in the design, alternative choices would be discussed. This would be important both where there's a real problem with the obvious alternative, and where the obvious alternatives are perhaps equally valid
It emphasizes the use of OO design and design patterns in J2EE, without becoming a theoretical book

From the Back Cover

The results of using J2EE in practice are often disappointing – applications are often slow, unduly complex, and take too long to develop. I believe that the problem lies not in J2EE itself, but in that it is often used badly. Many J2EE publications advocate approaches that, while fine in theory, often fail in reality, or deliver no real business value.

In this book I offer a real-world, how-to guide so that you can make J2EE work in practice. I draw on my experience of designing successful high-volume J2EE applications and salvaging failing projects, as well as intimate knowledge of the J2EE specifications.

I’ll help you to solve common problems with J2EE and avoid the expensive mistakes often made in J2EE projects. I will guide you through the complexity of the J2EE services and APIs to enable you to build the simplest possible solution, on time and on budget. I take a practical, pragmatic approach, questioning J2EE orthodoxy where it has failed to deliver results in practice and instead suggesting effective, proven approaches.

What you will learn from this book

• When to use a distributed architecture
• When and how to use EJB
• How to develop an efficient data access strategy
• How to design a clean and maintainable web interface
• How to design J2EE applications for performance

"I just wish this book had been around earlier when I was starting enterprise Java development. This book shows the benefits and pitfalls of J2EE and how best to avoid them."
—Andrew J. Smith, Java Architect

"Rod’s depth and breadth of experience is quite impressive! J2EE developers can avoid many of the hard lessons Rod learned by reading this book."
– Todd Lauinger, Software Construction Fellow, Best Buy, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 750 pages
• Publisher: Peer Information; 1st edition (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861007841
• ISBN-13: 978-1861007841
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #274,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional Effort but be Warned, December 24, 2002

By 

Daniel C. Hayes (Phoenixville, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development (Paperback)

First of all, this is a fine book. It is loaded with valuable nuggets and insight that I have yet to find in similar books. I agree with all of the other reviewers that Rod's style is great and that his strong opinions (based on obviously extensive experience) are a welcome relief to the simple re-organization of Sun's specification and/or design pattern recommendations.

ONE CAUTION! Some of the framework code outlined in the book COULD be considered overly complex for many circumstances. Ironically, Rod would probably respond that the high degree of abstraction would IMPROVE the usability and maintainability of any J2EE application. However, I believe that excessive abstraction, in an of itself, can become a maintenance (and training) nightmare (look at the sheer complexity of the interface inheritance in the data access framework from Chapter 9 alone). His solutions to Data Access and Application infrastructure are so sophisticated that they qualify as a framework worthy of open source momentum on their own. The downside of this, of course, is that your development team must invest in understanding these sophisticated hierarchies since they are unlikely to have encountered them in any previous role. Unless you have a VERY stable team of highly skilled designers/developers, be cautious of trying to implement such frameworks. Instead, the downsides of more simple (albeit less flexible) approaches are usually outweighed by the reduction in training or the likelihood that transient resources will be able to contribute more quickly. Nonetheless, a great book and worthy of my ** All-Star ** category.

68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Amazing, July 30, 2003

By 

mitek (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

Even though this book is named "J2EE design and development", it seems to be much more than that. This seems to be the book in which the author attempted to put, in a crystallized form, most of his expertise not just in J2EE (that would be trivial), but in programming and (particularly) architecture in general. Given that the author is a true expert in the field (this is clear after reading just a few pages), this book has a value beyond anything I can express here in my words. I learned from this book more than from any other book on programming and architecture, with a possible exception of GOF "Design Patterns" classics.

No other book on web programming that I know of comes even close to this one. Some noteworthy features:
-- Always framework-oriented approach (which in my view is the only possible choice for real-world projects)
-- Heavy emphasis on architectural side of web development (follows from the previous point)
-- Comparison of different view technologies from practical point of view, w/o exclusively subscribing to a particular one which seems popular (like, JSP).
-- Excellent coverage of MVC paradigm, again, w/o subscribing to a particlar implementation (like Struts, etc)
-- Extensive coverage of all levels ("tiers") of a web application.

But what really shines, are the insights on architecture, namely the things which is impossible to find out by theoretically studying J2EE specifications and books such as "Enterprise Java Beans" and the like. For example, why Entity EJBs don't work. Or when is collocated EJB architecture is more appropriate than the distributed one, and why. After reading the book, many concepts just clear up. Not to say that everything is written in a clear and concise language (despite a few typographical errors that Wrox books are notorious for).

In short, this book is simply amazing.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book on solutions, not specifications, November 6, 2002

By 

Andrew Smith (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development (Paperback)

The real differentiator of this book is that its focus is on how to use J2EE to solve real-world problems, rather than providing an overview of the J2EE specification itself. As such, it's a much more pragmatic approach to using J2EE than the other books I've read on the subject.

The author starts by taking high-level perspective on the subject, showing the different design considerations that need to be applied when choosing which J2EE technologies to use. A case study (a ticket booking system) is described and elaborated on throughout the book, showing how these design considerations affect a real-world solution.

The book also provides a load of coding tips I found useful, from better use of reflection, to judicious use of design patterns, to how to minimise your refactoring. The author assumes the reader is an experienced developer, so doesn't focus on rudimentary Java and architecture. I found this useful, but it means the book is more focussed to a specific audience.

Amazingly, the book also provides an entire framework based on J2EE on which you can put your application logic. My only complaint is that this is not included in a companion CD - you have to download it.

Overall, the book works because it shows you how build solutions, not just understand the technology.