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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A missed opportunity, March 15, 2004
This review is from: Java Open Source Programming: with XDoclet, JUnit, WebWork, Hibernate (Paperback)
What a good book this might have been. It isn't an awful book but it could have been so much better. The premise of the book is to take the "Pet Store" and improve it by using several open source tools. The first part of the book discusses each of the tools with brief explanations and sample code. The second part takes us through the development process showing how to use the tools that were discussed earlier. The good parts of the book are mostly in the second half. The authors apply each of the tools, explain test-driven development, demonstrate how and when to refactor code, etc. The integration of the different tools is made naturally so that it doesn't seem that the authors are trying to squeeze a tool in just to demonstrate it. The bad parts: this book desperately needs editing, both technical and for grammar. It is very distracting to see so much improper English usage including run on sentences, sentence fragments, and noun-verb disagreement. On the technical side, there are so many errors in the code that I doubt very much will actually compile, let alone run. Typical errors include methods declaring to return a value and not returning anything, closing files before they are used, and using variables that are not declared. If you are interested in the technologies discussed and can debug the code in the book, there is a good amount of value. But it could have been so much better.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great, well paced intro into O/S java, but I want more!, September 22, 2004
This review is from: Java Open Source Programming: with XDoclet, JUnit, WebWork, Hibernate (Paperback)
I read this book as part of my switch to java. I've been building web sites for almost 10 years in other languages, and decided to use this book together with Learning Java as a hand-by-hand real world tutorial on how to integrate the tools, properly configure your source tree, run your tests, how to setup your MVC web framework, validation, etc. I think that as a beginning real-world supplement to a java learner like myself, this book succeeds brilliantly. I do not mind poor grammar that other people are complaining about, as I myself was not born in an English speaking country. I do appreciate author's opinionated and passionate approach to subjects they discuss, such as test driven development, their choice of WebWork over Struts, their usage of Ant and jUnit.
I actually did download and compiled (and ran) the PetSoar example, so those reviewers that claim the code does not compile must have not actually tried it. It does work! I started a project based off the PetSoar example, so it was of great help to have that source.
But, there are a couple of issues that I feel could have been done better/differently.
1. The authors use the in-memory database HSQLDB for all of their development. I understand that using in-memory database allows you to test persistence stuff from unit tests, but I would have like to see that done in ADDITION rather than INSTEAD OF a regular database, such as Oracle/PostgreSQL/MySQL.
2. Most web-based applications also have a need for some sort of backend/daemon processes. I saw no mention of how to implement those within the context of WebWork/xWork. For example, a background thread that polls database table for changes is a very common requirement for many apps.
3. Would be great to at least touch on some open source queue (JMS) based implementation, and its integration into a web app.
4. Integration with Resin was out of date by the time I tried it and did not work. I am using Tomcat and would have prefered authors to show how to develop pages without having to reload the context every time the change happens (from Eclipse/IDEA).
5. Description of WebWork/xWork and Hibernate could use extra 10-20 pages each. The IoC concept was not explained that well (I felt), especially considering that the book seems to be targeted at someone like myself, who may not be well accustomed to an alternative. xWork's limitation that only actions can be "aware" of component interfaces makes it hard to design complex object hierarchies, where an action may not be the best place to put all your business logic.
6. Diagrams! Database design, class relationships, please - use UML!! One picture is worth thousand words! Use them! :)
Anyway, I think this book is great, but if there is ever a 2nd edition, it could benefit a lot from getting a bit of face lift, more in-depth analysis on select technologies, and more digrams.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Two books in one: Reference and Case Study, November 30, 2003
This review is from: Java Open Source Programming: with XDoclet, JUnit, WebWork, Hibernate (Paperback)
There are always a few books that you know are in the works... but aren't due for completion for a long time. Sometimes you are really looking forward to getting them in your hands, and this book was one of these. "Java Open Source Programming" is an interesting title as it could mean so many things. I think this book is two things: - A look at many great open source technologies that developers should have in their toolboxes such as: . JUnit
. Mock Objects
. Hibernate
. WebWork
. SiteMesh
. Lucene
. XDoclet - A chance to watch some good programmers walk through a project with these tools, and see how they all come together. So you end up getting different things out of the book. It is nice to look at the technology in isolation when you really want to learn that one technology. It is also very helpful to see how these technologies integrate, and how you go about actually building something real (which is after all what we all want to do). Since so many technologies are covered in the book, the authors have to really think about what they want to get across. If they documented every XML tag, for every possible configuration, you would end up with a tomb of information, and it would be pretty dry reading too. :) I think the authors do a good job of giving you the information that you really want. However, if you are an expert in one of the technologies then you may have wished for more... but for that you will have to wait for a book just on that technology. I am a big fan (and user) of most of the technologies that are used in this book. Some of them have good documentation via their website, and some of them have NOT so good documentation. It is definitely worth having some high quality docs in one book that I can reference, instead of having to curse at the website. I have to admit to one moment where I let out a groan. That was when I saw that the sample project would be another PetStore. I think a lot of people are probably tired of the PetStore, but here at TheServerSide that is probably doubly so! :) To be fair to the authors, they do have a section called "Looking at Yet Another PetStore" where they explain their reasons for it, and there are some valid reasons; but I still had to cry a little.
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