Customer Reviews

Seam Framework: Experience the Evolution of Java EE (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Seam Framework: Experience the Evolution of Java EE, 2nd Edition" reads like a tutorial, and a very good one. It is neither too short, nor too detailed, just enough to make you understand the logic behind Seam. Chapter 1 to Chapter 11 introduces Seam's core capabilities. This framework offers so much to ease web development that it is sometimes difficult to cope with all its features. The authors have kept explanations straight, to prevent the reader from scratching his head all along. These eleven chapters are very well structured, reusing the same little sample and improving it bits by bits.

Chapter 12 to 18 introduce web components and other web related features like bookmarkable web pages or security management. Chapter 19 to 21 tackles with Ajax support in Seam, mainly explaining how to use different kind of libraries supporting Ajax. The rest of the book deals with many different interesting topics like rule-base security, jBPM, testing, performance tuning, Web Beans and much more.

Each chapter is accompanied with a ready-to-use sample, which is downloadable at the authors' web site. I like the fact that the authors did not put to much stress on seam-gen, and use their own small samples to illustrate each chapter. I also like the fact that the authors didn't try to overload the reader with loads of details, redirecting readers to the official documentation when necessary. In the chapters about seam's core, they basically introduce a problem, how seam helps to solve it, how it is done using annotations, and how it can be done using an XML descriptor file. This is a very good book, which can be read very smoothly.

If you are into UI development working with struts, or anything and stayed away from JSF all the time because of the things you heard about it? This would be the right time to step into JSF with nice improvements on the way of its next release. Seam is the framework that gave us these advantages even without having to wait for the next JSF releases. That's because the features of the Seam framework is one of the several influences for the next release of JSF, and Web Beans. Being that said Seam is definitely a future ready framework.

And this book effectively starts with explaining the intention of Seam, and explores its features in detailed examples on the following chapters. Some special topics even include various tips on how to use the features neatly. For an example 2.6.4 Avoid excessive Bi-Jection - gives out a point on how to reduce excessive bi-jection, a feature always misused by a programmer fairly new to Seam.

The book also explains how well Seam also could be used without EJB and how it easily integrates with various other frameworks. Say for AJAX, or integrating with Quartz for scheduled jobs.

This book in its entirety covers all the topics required for building a highly rich Seam application, and even tells about running it under a production environment. It covers more topics for getting the application running effectively in production environment by discussing over points like caching, performance tuning. The book also gives an introduction to the Web Beans, with a sample so you could see how your Seam experience is going to put you forward in learning Web Beans when it becomes main stream.

Having had early access to this book, it definitely helped me to understand the key concepts of the Seam such as conversation that is commonly mis-understood and most debated in the seam forums. My personal favorites of this book are the Chapter 8 on Conversations, and Chapter 11 on Transactions & Persistence.

I would highly recommend this book for any developers who were still staying away from JSF, and also for someone who looking forward see what's new coming on that front. And finally for someone who want to see how far Seam has come forward from its initial release.

I really like this book. It gives me an understandable intorduction to all Seam features. One of the questions I had was why I should still use EJB3's when Seam can manage simple POJO's to do the same. This book had a good list with POJO trade-offs.
Seam's conversation context is clearly explained.

The second updated edition of SEAM FRAMEWORK: EXPERIENCE THE EVOLUTION OF JAVA EE has been fully updated to cover enhancements to version 2.x and offers a core study guide to all the applications and functions of Seam. Java programming libraries will find this a 'must' acquisition: it covers all the advanced functions with discussions that offer keys to understanding how to take maximum advantage of Seam's impressive powers.

Not a bad book, to be fair, but from an advanced developer's point of view, I must say: "just another tutorial". The authors take us on the usual trip from easy to medium advanced examples, covering some ground which is mainly interesting for developers who are just beginning with Seam.

What they are (almost) NOT doing is to take the reader behind the scenes and cover some advanced topics. Many chapters seemed like a blown content of the available online documentation to me, nothing really new, nothing really unique.

"Seam in Action" by Dan Allen is the far better deal. He gives an insight from a Seam core developer's point of view, which is by far more interesting.

If I wouldn't know "Seam in Action", I would recommend this book to beginners in Seam.

I definitely do not recommend the book to anyone in hope of finding answers to advanced topics (architectures, patterns, cross cutting concerns in complex enterprise scenarios).

I quickly read a few chapters of the book, it seems to be a nice book, but when I began to practice,
I followed the examples in the book but nothing worked, I then tried to download the examples source
codes by following the instructions of page 10 in the book from [...], I got
"link broken" message, there was no source code for me to download. I navigated through
[...] (one of the authors' web site) and left a message at michaelyuan' facebook
asking him to advise how I could get the examples' source codes as the book promises, but never got
any responses.

Authors should follow the book as if they are the readers and make sure the examples work before they
publish it. That can save unnecessary frustrations. And that's the minimum.

When I read a technical book, I'm not looking for a plot or character development or flowery metaphors - I just want to get the answers without thinking too much and not have to bang my head against the wall. This book does that. Thanks Michael for the book and Gavin for Seam!