Professional Java Server Programming: with Servlets, ... (ISBN 1861002777)

Book Description:
An overview of the new server-side Java platform - Java 2 Enterprise Edition - as it relates to building n-tier web applications. It covers the building blocks (Servlets, JSP, EJB, JDBC, RMI, JNDI, CORBA) then goes into special design considerations for server side programming, (including resource pooling and component based design) before finally discussing future possibilities opened up by Jini and JavaSpaces technology. In a world where, increasingly, corporate IT development is Web application development - ASP, PHP, CGI and ISAPI are all viable options.Now, so is the Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition, and that's good news because server-side Java is portable across Windows, Linux, UNIX and MacOS and compatible with a wide range of Web Servers (IIS, Apache, Netscape Enterprise Server) and Application Servers from Sun, IBM and others. What does all this mean for you? Java provides technologies to allow for server side processing, dynamic page content generation and dynamic presentation. With these comprehensive, platform independent Java class libraries you can join together the disparate pieces of your business - data, applications and platforms - to form a coherent whole. Java 2 Enterprise Edition - announced by Sun in June 1999 - makes Java an entire platform, not just another language and this is the first book that seriously covers it.

Not for serious developers:
I would reccomend this book only to people who are new to Java Programming and want an overall treatise with something on everything possible server side. But for those who are already in this field for a while and want to build on their knowledge this book would be a big disappointment. The other main drawback of this book is its bulkiness. This book does cover some of the topics like servlets in detail good enough for a serious programmer but most of the other topics introduced are not exhaustive enough for a serious developer. To sum it up, rather buy books on individual topics and build a solid base than adorn your bookself with fancy Wrox books.

Ok as an overview but too bulky:
I guess I shouldn't expect a book written by 12 different people to be too cohesive but this book was very disjointed. They tried to cover too many topics with varying levels of depth so while this may have been a good book were it intended to be an overview of the technologies, it ends up uneven with topic coverage quality ranging from average to poor. The case studies and plethora of appendixes mostly bulked up the book rather than adding value.

Not For Professionals:
I bought this book a few months ago and I found out that it covers the basics of J2EE. Imagine 10+ authors. Each talks about their own thing and then they slap it together and call it a Wrox Published book. My gripes with this book are: 1. Unfocused. Topics jump from rather quickly and do not ease you into one another. 2. Code is filled with example codes that do not work. 3. Did not stay with one topic and cover it enough. 4. Price Good things about the book: 1. Has a pretty nice red cover so I know Wrox made it. 2. It's pretty big so if a rat manages to get in the house, I can squash it with the book, not that I would do such a thing. 3. Makes people go "WOW" when they say, "you actually read that whole thing??" given the number of pages. Unfortunately, this is not one book that I've been hitting on for help at all. It's usually the last resort to look up information since I usually find the answers I need elsewhere. The material provided in this book is too spread out and not covered enough in detail to be of much use. However, for those who just want to get a feel for the J2EE technologies, I say you would enjoy this book. But it would outlive its usefullness after some time.

Not for serious developers.:
I would reccomend this book only to people who are new to Java Programming and want an overall treatise with something on everything possible server side. But for those who are already in this field for a while and want to build on their knowledge this book would be a big disappointment. The other main drawback of this book is its bulkiness. This book does cover some of the topics like servlets in detail good enough for a serious programmer but most of the other topics introduced are not exhaustive enough for a serious developer. To sum it up, rather buy books on individual topics and build a solid base than adorn your bookself with fancy Wrox books.

Great book:
Over all this is a great book. It give you the overall idea on Java Server Programming. If you really serious on specific topic, you have to buy another one. It is good for the beginner to grap the general idea on Java Server Programming.