Customer Reviews

Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans and the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This book provides decent coverage of basic EJB 1.0 (EJB 1.1 is the current version) but it's light on technical details. According to its title this book is supposed to cover J2EE, but this material is brief and surprisingly insubstantial. Management types might find this book useful, but real developers should look elsewhere.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone seeking a thorough understanding of Enterprise JavaBeans and it's integration within the framework of Java 2 Enterprise Edition. The author does an excellent job of explaining the features of EJB and J2EE as well as potential pitfalls. He is also frank about places where EJB does not measure up yet. (Some of these improvements are already part of the EJB 1.1 specs, covered in the section on EJB 1.1) The book has a large number of examples to illustrate the various concepts discussed. The section on evaluation criteria for EJB vendor is particularly useful for anyone looking to make a purchase decision for Application Servers

I must say this was the easiest book for me. Easy on your eyes, easy on your brain, but not to say that it lacks good information. I first read Enterprise JavaBeans from O'Reilly but that book read just like the EJB specification(dreadful). However, Roman's book reads well and like one of the reviewers mentioned there are chapters that will explain to you advantages of using EJB in your shop not because everyone says it's the newest and the coolest technology but because it's the most efficient architecture for enterprise solution. So managers will be convinced they should be using EJBs and developers will understand how to implement an EJB solution after reading this book. Do you have a sketchy idea of what EJB is? Then read this book and you'll have a solid understanding afterwards. If you need gory details, there is always the specification(I wouldn't recommend it)

What I liked about this book is the ability of Ed Roman to really explain things. He explains what the bolts and nuts of EJB's are and why they are needed in developing Enterprise server-side applications. I picked up this book having just a basic knowable of EJB's from what I read from JDC's tutorials and also from Stephen Asbury & Scott R. Weiner book "Developing Java Enterprise Application". But it was this book that made me really understand the big 3; (I)The What, (II) The Why and (III) The How.

The book starts of with the basics , explaining Server-side Component Architectures and where EJB and J2EE fits in with all these different architectures. The main heavy topics are the sessions and entity beans, it also has a good chapter on RMI, CORBA / RMI-IIOP . The chapters on JNDI, XML are not much into detail, and it does not cover the whole of J2EE specification. But however don't be discouraged by some of the reviews saying this book is outdated because it covers version 1.0. Because if you really want to get a grip understanding EJB's and how they connect to other J2EE components , get this book and you would not be disappointed.

This is a very good book to learn the fine points of EJB. There are some topics in this book which is missing from O'Reilly's EJB book . This book provides a good tutorial for RMI for those who are new to J2EE . There is a chapter on integration of Java Servlets with beans which is very useful. Both these features are missing from O'Reilly's book.

The new edition of the book covers EJB 1.1( unlike mentioned in some of the reviews ) and XML based deployment descriptors . There is a primer on XML as well . The samples are also okay . I rate this book the second best after O'Reilly's .

This is an excellent book written in a very readable, even engaging style. The best part about it is that it covers the subject of EJBs from soup to nuts. It starts with the rationale for EJBs, the component architecture, and who the key players are in an EJB deployment. From there the author drills down to explain the details of building beans and consistently explains his design decisions. He follows this up with a complete eCommerce example that includes servlets acting within the presentation layer to leverage the power of the beans. There are even supplementary chapters covering JNDI, CORBA, etc.

I am hopeful that Mr. Roman will soon find the time to update his book so that it is completely in conformance with the EJB1.1 specification. Once he does this, I can recommend this book unreservedly.

This book really needs to be updated, the 1.0 stuff is way out of date. I also found the example subjects to be sort of weird in some cases, he uses this "component game" at one point. I think it would be more illustrative if he stuck to real world business situations that practicioners encounter. One thing I think is really cool is that this is online. It also definitely contains a good deal of valuable info but with the EJB 2.0 spec final now, he really needs to get a new edition out.