Broad, Deep Server-Side Java Development Wisdom

Touches all critical server-side Java technologies in a strong presentation and great examples with good references.


ORIGINAL DRAFT

Without question, the coverage in this book is broad and meaningful. It’s challenging to even contemplate coverage of a such a wide spectrum of Java server side applications. This book does a remarkable job of presenting fundamental Java-based technologies like Servlets, EJB, XML, JNDI, JavaMail, RMI, CORBA, Jini and JSP in about a thousand pages. Concepts like working with Servlets and JSP, data-handling (database, name spaces, XML, mail and web solutions), multi-tiered server architectures, and more, are all well presented and surprisingly uniform, given that more than a dozen authors we involved. The breadth of experience brought to bear on these topics add value and the $59.95 price tag is a small price to pay for pragmatic material.

There are numerous server-side, enterprise technologies that are not well explored in other books. The chapters on JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Services), JavaMail, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) are great to see. Chapters on error handling and event logging, connection pooling and servlet chaining are remarkably useful. Examples like a bug tracking system, page indexing, and Jini services are meaningful and non-trivial. There are 27 chapters in this book, and not one of them is a shallow skimming over the facts. Each digs heartily into the topic and presents a practical look at the things you need to understand to make these technology work for you.

On top of this coverage, there is plenty of useful reference information in the 17 appendices at the end of the book. I found the HTTP reference and UML tutorial worthy of note. The APIs explored in the book are there for reference, including JNDI, JDBC, EJB, JavaMail, Jini and JavaSpaces. For anyone who needs a servlet engine, there are appendices on setting up JServ, ServletRunner, JRun and the Java Web Server. I wasn’t able to find much fault in any of the material I read in this book. On occasions, the information could have been more extensive, but on the whole it was complete, insightful and well presented.

Wrox is a publisher that used to focus heavily on Microsoft technologies. They have obviously come to understand the importance of Java and have brought to bear their considerable resources to help share professional experience with sophisticated readers looking for practical answers they can apply in their professional development efforts. "Professional Java Programming" is an excellent investment and does an outstanding job exploring serious topics, broadly, comprehensively and effectively. If you’re serious about server-side Java development, run out and pick up this book right away.