Customer Reviews

Mac OS X for Java Geeks

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had been playing around with my PowerBook G4 as a webserver (using Apache), building some PHP-based applications, and serving them up locally during development. PHP is great for quick deployment of server-side web pages, but I had wanted to try my hand at developing Java-based web apps. I didn't really know where to start, but then I found Mac OS X for Java Geeks.

Using this book as my guide, I was able to:

* Install and configure Apache Tomcat
* Write and deploy my first "Hello World" JSP
* Write and deploy my first Servlet
* Deploy a working JSP that accesses a MySQL database

For me, this book has been invaluable... and I've only used two chapters! Will Iverson has created a volume that has something for everyone-- but most people will only use a part of the book.

Everyone can benefit from his overview of the JVM on Mac OS X, as well as the chapter on Java development tools.

If you want to develop web-based Java applications, there are chapters on Applets, JSPs and Servlets, Web services such as SOAP, and even using JBoss to serve EJBs.

If you hope to develop applications for the Mac platform, there are chapters on creating Mac applications, and interfacing with Mac OS gems such as Quicktime , Mac OS speech, and the Mac OS spelling framework.

The book is filled with great figures and examples, and readers looking to get their feet wet can build a swing application called SimpleEdit, which is used throughout the book as something to build on with newly acquired knowledge.

If you are planning to do any work in Java and the Mac is your development (or deployment) platform, you gotta get this book. I know I'll be coming back to it over and over.

This book fills a very important need. The hope of "write-once, run-anywhere" is nearly a reality in the Java world. But beyond the edges of the Java specifications are the platform-specific regions that challenge those of us who try to create portable software. And these platform-specific differences are more pronounced on the Mac than on any other popular Java platform.

I love Java, I love UNIX, and I love the Mac. They all come together in a rich symphony under Mac OS X. The Java piece is more tightly integrated with the underlying OS than it is on other platforms, which makes for a better Mac-centric experience for the user. But this also means that some aspects of Java that happen to be common across other platforms are different on the Mac. This includes such things as Java directory layout, minor GUI quirks, application packaging, etc. There are lots of books from Apple junkies about developing Mac application in Java, but this is THE book to get if you're a Java junkie and you want to develop Java applications that run everywhere, including the Mac. The author does an excellent job of succinctly explaining where/how/why from a Java perspective, enabling developers to develop products that maintain portability while being good Mac citizens.

This book was misleading with the title, it seemed as though a large portion of the book was dedicated to covering basic Java concepts (definition of EJB, JMX, JSP, etc., JVM layout).

The information on cross-platform development was somewhat useful, but as a Java geek you probably were already aware of these items (path separators, new lines, etc.).

The book does have its useful moments, hence the three stars, but it wasn't worth the $39.95 price tag. Chapters 5 (Finder integration), 7 (Standalone Applications), and 11 (OS X Spelling Framework) were interesting. Finally, the author's writing style was friendly and easy to read.

* This book has provided preliminary introduction to the platform with exploring
the technical underpinnings of the Mac OS X Java implementation.
* This booke is good for new java developer for Mac OS X platform, someone can explore the
pragmatics of Java development, including how to set up your development environment.
* And makes you aware of Apple's various additons to the java platform and describes how
to package and deliver an application to end users that looks and behaves like a naive
Mac OS X application.
* It has covers some recent features like Web start, Speech framework, Web service and
Ejb and Jboss.
* After that this book is good start for getting hands on the Apache web server running and
supplement it with the jakarta Tomcat JSP and servlet containers.

This is more of a set of self-contained articles than a book. Though it is not specifically written that way. I'm mixed about why this book was necessary. The topics are a hodge-podge. Which leads me to the 'set of articles' notion.

That being said, overall the writing is good and the topics are fairly well covered. Chapter three, on tools, is a standout. There are some problems, the code isn't well annotated, and some chapters, like chapter 9 on Speech, feel out of place altogether.

For those looking to make use of some OS X specific features with Java, you will like this book. It's pretty specific though, so for the casual reader I would recommend against it.

This book starts out a little slow, but then it winds up and gets into the important topics. For anyone that has ever had a difficult time functioning on this platform, this book will give you all the information to make you as comfortable as you are in windows. Although it covers all the major areas, it provides plenty of examples and unlike most tech books, it drops all the filler and gets straight to the point.

Simply being able to run Java from a console window may suffice for some. Perhaps I have a lot in common with others by wanting to understand what's different about how Java is configured in the Mac environment, and how programmers need to work differently with Java. For Java developers, there are many differences between this OS and Windows. Thanks to this fine book, I now understand what I see and what to watch out for. Believe me, there are lots of things to know about. Finally, what impressed me the most about this book was how it was up-to-date in terms of JDK 1.4.x. Apple made considerable changes in this JDK update, including how the provided Java development and deployment tools are used. This book covers everything. Strongly recommended!

The first half of the book is good material. After reviewing some fundamentals of MacOS and how it applies to Java, you create a sample application. Most of the material in this half is still relevant even 3 years later - although Java 1.3 is now in the past, the author did include info about 1.4. The IDE section is probably the most dated with no discussion about Eclipse. One nit here, is that there is a lot of code to enter and the author shouldn't have waited until 2/3 of the way through the book to suggest downloading code from the O'Reilly site.

The second half of the book gets a little strange with a whirlwind tour through some interesting Java technologies. Still, after finishing the book you can see that the author wasn't trying to give you a taste of EJBs, SOAP, Tomcat, etc.. He wanted to get the technologies working for you on the MacOS so that if it is something you need, the book has gotten you past the platform-specific and/or installation issues. Unfortunately, some elements of this part of the book are dated including the speech and spelling sections - Apple has removed them from Java 1.4 and they aren't in 1.5 either.

In general, the text isn't quite as smooth as in other O'Reilly books. Minor stuff like a sentence that continues the thought of the previous sentence begins with "but".

Despite my complaints, I still consider it a 4-star book because of the great info in the first half. And if I hadn't read this book, it would have taken me a lot longer to absorb the same info from various web sites.

I'll start with my grade, a C-, generously given. The author, Will Iverson, did a good job of briefly touching on all aspects of Java and Java development. He gave a chapter to the Java topics: Apple's JVM, Java tools/IDEs, Java GUIs, stand-alone Java apps, Servlets, JSPs, Tomcat, and EJBs. And a few other chapters on more Mac OS X stuff like databases, Apple extensions, and some Apple specific Java APIs.

The chapters cover their stated topics well giving just enough info that the reader understands the topic but doesn't give enough info to make the reader "dangerous". I was hoping for more Mac OS X stuff and less Java. I didn't need the history of Tomcat. If you are a Java Geek you know that. But, being new to Mac OS X more OS X stuff would have been more relevant in this book.

I really can't complain because I got this book free, but in my opinion it's definitely not worth the $39.95 O'Reilly is looking for. I think the $9.95 O'Reilly gets for their "Pocket" books would be more appropiate.

Very timely book and nicely laid out. Well-suited to programmers new to the Mac but familiar with Java. The Java info is very up-to-date with URL references and gobs of info on compatibility. My only quibble is that the book flirts with varying degrees of background knowledge for the reader, for example, it lists many of the IDEs available on OSX but doesn't really give great reason to choose one over another. Then for the rest of the book the author stays above the IDE level and just gives instructions that are IDE-neutral. Although Project Builder may not be the best IDE out there, at least it is included in every OSX distro so I would have preferred a little more detail using it for the exercises.