Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans and the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition [Paperback]

Ed Roman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471332291 | ISBN-13: 978-0471332299 | Publication Date: September 24, 1999 | Edition: Enterprise Edition

"This book is a must-have for developers who want to jumpstart their EJB development process. Ed Roman shows the right way to use the J2EE technology with in-depth examples and coding patterns from the real world. We recommend this book as part of our education materials for both in-house staff and customer engagements." - William W. Lee, Chief Technology Officer, The Theory Center

What some are calling the best thing to happen to enterprise programming since Java itself, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) radically streamlines the server-side application development process. In this book, you'll learn EJB from a developer's perspective---the author cuts through the marketing hype and shows you both the good and the bad in developing real-world EJB applications. You'll learn everything you need to jumpstart your EJB development, --from understanding the basics of the EJB architecture, to developing transactional, scalable, and secure multi-user enterprise applications. After reading this book, you'll know how to:
* Develop with both EJB 1.0 as well as the new EJB 1.1 standard
* Master the technologies that complement EJB: Java RMI, RMI-IIOP, JTA, JNDI, CORBA, and XML. E(each of these topics is covered in full)
* Develop with both bean types: session beans (stateful and stateless), and entity beans (bean-managed and container-managed persistent)
* Design, implement, and deploy a real-world e-commerce system, with a total of nine enterprise beans and seven Java servlets
* Avoid pitfalls that could make your code non-portable across EJB servers
* Make an educated EJB server purchase decision

The CD-ROM provides you with:
* An immense amount of sample code that you can extend for your own needs
* A trial of the BEA WebLogic EJB server for getting started right away

On the companion Web site you'll find:
* Updates to the book
* A treasure trove of links to EJB and J2EE resources

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Centering on Sun's Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) 1.1 specification, Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans surveys the range of technologies and APIs needed to use EJBs successfully. Mixing a high-level perspective on EJBs with plenty of practical programming advice, this title makes a good choice for the IS manager or developer planning to use EJBs in future projects.

This book succeeds in two notable ways. First, it presents a fine high-level overview describing EJBs and how they fit into today's multitiered, server-side enterprise architectures. The author makes connections between EJBs and other component architectures (such as Microsoft DNA and CORBA). Illustrated with numerous diagrams, these chapters will be useful to anyone seeking to understand the basics of Sun's powerful component model.

This title also serves as a programming primer for serious EJB development. In later sections, the author introduces practical advice for creating both session and entity beans, with plenty of nuts-and-bolts advice, including how to work with actual EJB products. (This book also shows you what to look for when purchasing an EJB application server to deploy your bean components.)

Later chapters delve into transaction management and show how to use Java with CORBA and IIOP. The text culminates in an impressive case study using EJBs and Java servlets to power an e-commerce Web site (complete with an online catalog and a shopping cart). This example is a standout, and it's all you will likely need to get started with EJBs in custom projects. Final appendices cover several APIs and standards in more detail, including RMI, JNDI, and XML.

In all, this title succeeds at bringing the EJB standard home to the practical reader. It demystifies EJBs and gives both managers and developers what they need to start solving business problems using this powerful new component model. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Overview of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) component model and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), the EJB 1.1 standard, multitiered server-side architectures, J2EE technology primer: RMI, JNDI, JDBC, JTS/JTA, servlets and JSPs, Java IDL, JavaMail, Connectors, XML, EJB Container and Server products and responsibilities, session beans: stateless and stateful beans, EJB security and component life cycle, entity beans and persistence: bean-managed persistent entity beans and container-managed persistent entity beans, flat and nested transactions, ACID properties, two-phase commits, CORBA and RMI-IIOP and EJBs, e-commerce case study using EJBs and servlets.

From the Back Cover

"This book is a must-have for developers who want to jumpstart their EJB development process. Ed Roman shows the right way to use the J2EE technology with in-depth examples and coding patterns from the real world. We recommend this book as part of our education materials for both in-house staff and customer engagements." - William W. Lee, Chief Technology Officer, The Theory Center

What some are calling the best thing to happen to enterprise programming since Java itself, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) radically streamlines the server-side application development process. In this book, you'll learn EJB from a developer's perspective---the author cuts through the marketing hype and shows you both the good and the bad in developing real-world EJB applications. You'll learn everything you need to jumpstart your EJB development, --from understanding the basics of the EJB architecture, to developing transactional, scalable, and secure multi-user enterprise applications. After reading this book, you'll know how to:
* Develop with both EJB 1.0 as well as the new EJB 1.1 standard
* Master the technologies that complement EJB: Java RMI, RMI-IIOP, JTA, JNDI, CORBA, and XML. E(each of these topics is covered in full)
* Develop with both bean types: session beans (stateful and stateless), and entity beans (bean-managed and container-managed persistent)
* Design, implement, and deploy a real-world e-commerce system, with a total of nine enterprise beans and seven Java servlets
* Avoid pitfalls that could make your code non-portable across EJB servers
* Make an educated EJB server purchase decision

The CD-ROM provides you with:
* An immense amount of sample code that you can extend for your own needs
* A trial of the BEA WebLogic EJB server for getting started right away

On the companion Web site you'll find:
* Updates to the book
* A treasure trove of links to EJB and J2EE resources

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; Enterprise Edition edition (September 24, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471332291
• ISBN-13: 978-0471332299
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,656,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Teaches the basic fundamentals, and gets you up to speed, August 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans and the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (Paperback)

In the past few years, companies have been returning to multi-tiered design of backend server architectures. Java has become a popular language for implementing these systems, due in no small part to the release of new technologies such as Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) and the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform. When used together, they help programmers make more robust and interchangeable server components -- but keeping up with the radical shift in thinking, and new class libraries, is pretty tough for developers.

This book was written by Ed Roman as a means of helping people understand the complex technologies involved with EJB programming, and to overcome them. Straight off in the preface, Ed points out that EJB's are not easy and does not want to lead the reader astray into thinking it is. After reading this book, I have a very good impression of it, and found that Ed was correct about EJB's not being easy. It covers EJB's as a whole and explains any other necessary technologies, such as transactions, servlets, XML and RMI-IIOP, as needed. When certain technologies are chosen over others, the author provides sound reasons as to why the decision was made.

Due to the level of tasks that Sun designed EJB's to handle, they are very complex and the API is very rich. That's why you need an authoritative reference like Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans, to help get you up to speed with EJB development. Reading the specification alone with out a guide means many hours of frustration and lost time, and you'll find you've only scratched the surface of this topic..

This book covers the EJB 1.0 standard, but does point out that the EJB 1.1 standard has improved some of the problems. An appendix covers the improvements in EJB 1.1, but this book is still highly useful and recommended.

One of the useful items I noted about the chapters is that the author created a different EJB for each chapter instead of reusing one single one over and over. I found this very useful as an exercise. While this book covers a very complex topic, I found that the author managed keep the complexity of each chapter down to a good level. The material was covered in small chunks that will not overwhelm most users. I believe that Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans strikes the right mix between covering the theory, without swamping the reader with jargon and abstract topics.

The Java 2 Enterprise Edition platform is an extremely rich and powerful API - but quite overwhelming for new users. Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans does an excellent job of teaching the basic fundamentals, and getting you up to speed on a complex topic. While you'll find the tutorial a good guide to the topic, the book also serves as a handy reference. I'll be keeping it within arms reach while working on EJB components and the Java 2 Enterprise Edition platform.-- Michael Reilly, for the Java Coffee Break.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book, August 25, 2000

By 

mchenryed - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans and the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (Paperback)

Finally, after working my way through several weighty tomes on the subject of Enterprise Javabeans, I have discovered a book that explains the subject thoroughly and in friendly, concise format. The first few chapters give the subject a broad overview. This can be a bit weighty, but is important to gain a total view of the technology.

Finally, in chapters 3 through 6, Roman begins the subject of Session beans. He starts off basic -- explaining the concept behind the beans and evolving one to a fully-featured worker. The examples make sense and demonstrate the concept presented. Several more chapters are dedicated to the other side of EJB, the entity beans. Roman also covers several details about transactions and integrating your bean with JSP and servlets. The book also covered more details in the J2EE spec like Corba / RMI, JNDI but with less detail.

While the book is arguably misnamed (it doesn't cover everything in the J2EE specification) it does, however, do an excellent job covering EJB's. His examples are appropriate and meaningful. About my only gripe about the book is the lack of deployment descriptors -- they are almost completely absent. I realize that the XML file is based upon your application server's requirements, but this was left as a bit of a black hole. In conclusion, I wouldn't attempt to read this book without a solid understanding of Java. A dabbling in JSPs and / or servlets is also helpful. Overall, this is an excellent introduction and learning tool.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars pros and cons, June 10, 2000

By 

ZhongDan LAN (Newark, New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans and the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (Paperback)

pros:

* Clear explanation, easy to read.

* More complete and examples than <<Enterprise Javabeans>> by Richard Monson-Haefel

* BEA Web logic CD

* Good references at the end

* Objective: it says what is good and what is bad as well. It seems to be a serious book and not a specfication/product advertissement.

cons:

* Duplication, not concise.

* No explanation for CD.

* No JSP, only examples for j2ee, does not really cover j2ee.

* EJB1.0 only, not EJB1.1

Conclusion:

Buy it with <<Enterprise Javabeans>> by Richard Monson-Haefel, or wait for a better one it you are not in hurry.