Customer Reviews

OSGi in Action: Creating Modular Applications in Java

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Could a 520-page book ever amount to the primary professional source of hands-on knowledge about a topic such mysterious and misleadingly perceived complex as OSGi since many have already tried and failed? There are a few books about OSGi, however the specification grew up quite large lately, split in 3 different documents. Wouldn't it be nice if there existed a book that would get into the gory details nicely? I'm so grateful I could finally come across such a book - that's "OSGi in Action" from Manning. Manning proved again that their "In Action" series favours only the best authors who are often leaders in their area of expertise. Take it for granted when the authors are the active members of a OSGi framework project - Apache Felix. If their efforts in the project didn't speak for their accountability, the book did. It's a book that delivers on what it promises and the writing wisdom jumps at you when you open the first page.

In fact, the book has remained invaluable from the very beginning to the end. It didn't really matter whether it touched on simple bits like the OSGi layers or more advanced topics like available component models or security - it excelled in providing an in-depth coverage of OSGi in every page leaving a reader with no or a few questions unanswered. Not much head-scratching accompanies the book's reading as it reveals the myriad of choices OSGi offers. I did miss more coverage of Enterprise OSGi, but honestly I could barely endure more reading as almost every page of the book made me squealed in delight. Think about the emotions while trying to rein in your excitement and keeping focused during a 520-page book's reading. That is a grand adventure.

The particular ways the book used to explain every detail of OSGi have extremely influenced the course of my understanding. It looked as if this book were written for me in particular. It is written in a clear and lucid language wasting no space for overly page-consuming code listings. Dozens of well-chosen and often humorous figures adorn its content. The book nails down the merits of OSGi so well focusing on explaining the essentials. No page is a waste. There are samples and their explanations to virtually all problems or misunderstandings I ran across earlier and many more. It's remarkably engaging and is the sort of book you can just dip into now and again. I'm pretty sure the book would suit beginners as well as OSGi practitioners.

This wasn't the first book I read on the topic, yet I managed to learn a lot. For example, I couldn't have explained under what circumstances it makes sense to both import and export the same package, and I had never heard about the OSGi security model. You can read about features like latter in the OSGi spec, but some people prefer concise, working examples. The book avoids talking too much about specific tools, so it makes a good complement to a book (or documentation) for the OSGi tools and framework you are using.

To get started with OSGi is not so easy for everyone. OSGi in Action helps you to start thinking in modules and get the concept of the technology with very good examples. It covers the core and also some of the compendium specifications.

In its first parts the book covers the main principle of OSGi: modularity, followed by bundles, its lifecycle and services. The authors also don't forget to talk about how to test applications and manage bundles and applications. A whole, and one of the last chapters is also dedicated to security.

At the moment, this is for sure the best book to start with OSGi!

I read the pdf version of this on the manning site - and even though it is slow to get started, it is the best book on OSGi out there.

It explains the concepts very well, and provides great examples. This is the only book that had code that I able to follow along with - without getting tangled up in the tooling (eclipse plugins etc). What's more - the appendix allowed me to setup an eclipse/maven environment.

It is a great start for serious OSGi books - and I hope more like this will come out. Must have.

OSGi is not an easy environment to master so this book from several well-known authors of the OSGi scene is just about due. The book discusses the merits of the modular programming and uses OSGi as an example how the modular principles are reflected in a real-life framework. The book concentrates on the OSGi core, optional services are not discussed in detail.