J2EE AntiPatterns [Paperback]

Bill Dudney (Author), Stephen Asbury (Author), Joseph Krozak (Author), Kevin Wittkopf (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471146153 | ISBN-13: 978-0471146155 | Publication Date: August 11, 2003 | Edition: 1

"The flip-side of Patterns, AntiPatterns provide developers with formal descriptions of common development gaffes that can derail a project along with practical guidelines on how to avoid them. In this book, the authors present dozens of Java AntiPatterns that tackle many of Java's biggest trouble spots for programming with EJB, JSP, Servlets, and more. Each AntiPattern is documented with real-world examples, code, and refactored (or escape-route) solutions, and the book uses UML (where appropriate) to diagram improved solutions. All code examples from the book are available to the reader on the book's companion Web site."

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"The insights in this book are based on proven solutions from experts. They will ensure the success of your J2EE implementations."
—Bill Brown, AntiPattern Evangelist

All too often delivered software is full of bugs and poorly performing processes. Unfortunately, uncovering exactly what has gone wrong and what needs to be done to correct it can be a difficult process. Focusing on J2EE, this innovative book will give you the tools you’ll need to recognize and correct AntiPatterns–bad habits of code and design. The authors explore the common mistakes that are made while developing J2EE applications and clearly show you how to refactor your way out of them.

They first capture the AntiPatterns in a template that simply describes their symptoms and consequences as well as their typical causes. Then they guide you through the process of transforming the implementation of code to make the design better.

For each AntiPattern, the authors present you with real-world examples, code, and at least one refactoring. This approach will help you write J2EE programs that work better, quicker, and with less effort. You’ll find more than fifty J2EE AntiPatterns that tackle many of Java’s biggest trouble spots for programming including:

• Miscalculating bandwidth requirements
• Too much data in a JSP session
• Common functionality in every servlet
• Overloading destinations in message driven beans
• Choosing the wrong level of detail in J2EE services

The companion Web site contains the code examples from the book.

About the Author

BILL DUDNEY is a Java architect who?s been building J2EE applications for five years and distributed computing solutions for 14. He is co-author of Jakarta? Pitfalls (Wiley).

STEPHEN ASBURY is co-author of Developing Java™ Enterprise Applications and author of Enterprise Linux? at Work (both from Wiley), as well as four other books on development technology.

JOSEPH K. KROZAK is Vice President of Technology Development for Krozak Information Technologies, Inc., a supplier of advanced software solutions to Fortune 500 and mid-market companies.

KEVIN WITTKOPF has been a software architect and developer for more than seventeen years. He focuses on enterprise integration, Web services, messaging, and service-based architecture.

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (August 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471146153
• ISBN-13: 978-0471146155
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,810,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bill Dudney is a software developer and entrepreneur currently building software for the Mac. Bill started his computing career on a NeXT cube with a magneto-optical drive running NeXTStep 0.9. He's the author of iPhone SDK Development and Core Animation for OS X and the iPhone for the Pragmatic Programmers, as well as a series of iPhone development screencasts. He has several iPhone applications currently selling on the App Store from his company Gala Factory Software.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Common Sense for j2ee Developers, November 13, 2003

By 

kenneth m. levine (Orlando FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: J2EE AntiPatterns (Paperback)

This book is a very worthy addition to the pattern literature for j2ee. It is at about the same level of sophistication as the two now-standard j2ee pattern books (Alur, Malks and Crupi 2nd edition, and Marinescu).

If I were new to j2ee (but had some experience with Java, Design
Patterns, Enterprise Architecture and Refactoring) I would read Ed Roman's book, then Marinescu, then Alur's (noting that some of the patterns are now deprecated) and then this book.

The book is divided into 10 sections, each of which covers one aspect of j2ee technology, such as JSPs or Entity Beans. Overall it is well written and enjoyable to read. Each section is divided into a set of anti-patterns (things not to do) and a set of refactorings (what to do after you do the things they told you not to do). Although this leads to some redundancy (repeating the problem in the refactoring section) it
sucessfully deals with the many to many issue (antipatterns to
refactorings); the alternative would be to repeat or reference the refactoring in each antipattern section that it is applicable to.

The book is well edited with few problems. One issue is that some of the diagrams seem to be missing - what is presented is duplicates of previous diagrams. I assume this will be fixed in a future printing.

Like other pattern books, one of the advantages of this book is in the names we can now associate with common patterns we have all seen. A perfect example is "Ad Lib TagLibs", which are large taglibs which include business logic and control logic. The suggested refactoring include beanifying (the model data) and separating out a delegate controller.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read for Project Mangers, too, January 30, 2004

By 

sniezgod (Northern Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: J2EE AntiPatterns (Paperback)

Often, managers of medium to large scale software projects do not have the time (or inclination) to learn the technical nuances of the development environment they're managing. This lack of understanding can quickly give birth to worry and stress. "If only I knew the right questions to ask..." is a common lament among project managers as they wonder "why is module X so brittle?" and "why can't we ever meet the performance spec for subsystem Y?"

"J2EE AntiPatterns" is a useful guide for helping project managers with technical (but not necessarily J2EE) backgrounds zero-in on the major pitfalls the development team must circumvent. The Background, General Form, Symptoms and Consequences, and Typical Causes sections of most AntiPatterns provide the manager with sufficient information to recognize, understand, and (hopefully) avoid technical problems. (The exceptions are the AntiPatterns for entity, session and message-driven beans - the book assumes a basic understanding of J2EE beans.) Project managers do not need to fully comprehend the code examples (the book has many) to employ the lessons described in "J2EE AntiPatterns" - simply recognizing and understanding the AntiPatterns will be valuable to the team.

If I had read this book before (or during) my last project, I would have been able to recognize some significant problems by simply observing and listening to the engineers discuss their challenges, including the following AntiPatterns:

"Too Much Code" - our LOC metrics would have fleshed this one out quickly;
"Using Strings for Content Generation" - we spent many hours debugging HTML that rendered properly in IE but not Mozilla;
"When In Doubt Make it a Web Service" - it can be expensive mistake to implement something purely for technology's sake.

Coupled with a book or two describing J2EE at a high level, "J2EE AntiPatterns" is essential reading for technical project managers. This book will undoubtedly increase the project manager's effectiveness and help him/her better communicate with the team. A little knowledge for project managers is NOT always dangerous!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book to avoid other's mistakes, August 24, 2003

By 

Victor L. Peters (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: J2EE AntiPatterns (Paperback)

This book does an excellent job of describing a wide variety of common mistakes that are made in the design and implementation of J2EE systems. For each problem pointed out by the AntiPattern, the book also describes how you can refactor your design to avoid this problem. I strongly recommend that all J2EE architects, designers, and coders read both an AntiPattern book and a "positive" pattern book. It is very valuable to read books such as Core J2EE Patterns or EJB Design Patterns to find out positive patterns for J2EE design. Books like J2EE AntiPatterns provide the flip side of the coin by pointing out what you shouldn't do in your J2EE design.