Rating: 
Summary: Outdated already !! Does not cover sp 2
Review: This book contains nothing about sp2. It covers sp1 and that too not very accurately. Although the book is very well written, it lacks the depth of explanation - and assumes a lot. It is ok for the advanced readers, but beginners beware.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent best practice book
Review: This book is worth every penny of its cover price. I found it to be goldmine of information, and I've been working with WLS since 4.5.1. A combination of reading/skimming this book, combined with my day-to-day WLS 8.1 work allowed me to gain a WLS 8.1 certification with little trouble.The only thing they could do to improve it is to collect the best practices sidebars and print them on the inside covers, as many of the nicer patterns books do.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best software product books I've read
Review: This book is worth every penny of its cover price. I found it to be goldmine of information, and I've been working with WLS since 4.5.1. A combination of reading/skimming this book, combined with my day-to-day WLS 8.1 work allowed me to gain a WLS 8.1 certification with little trouble. The only thing they could do to improve it is to collect the best practices sidebars and print them on the inside covers, as many of the nicer patterns books do.
Rating:
Summary: Not detailed enough
Review: This is an excellent book for the advanced user. The author assumes a knowledge of J2EE/Weblogic and builds on that. The focus of the book is Best Practises in building weblogic applications and it does just that. The book also lists new features in Weblogic 8. I also liked the example application. If you are a novice user, then this book is not recommended. If you have worked in J2EE (and specifically weblogic), then this is a must-have on your book-shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book - perfect for the advanced user
Review: This is an excellent book for the advanced user. The author assumes a knowledge of J2EE/Weblogic and builds on that. The focus of the book is Best Practises in building weblogic applications and it does just that. The book also lists new features in Weblogic 8. I also liked the example application. If you are a novice user, then this book is not recommended. If you have worked in J2EE (and specifically weblogic), then this is a must-have on your book-shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Very good book
Review: This is by far the best book on J2EE and Weblogic I have read. I like how the author explains every single step of a project (the bigrez.com project), from design to deployment, and justifying not only every choice he has made, but also taking time to explain other alternatives, why they don't fit for this project, and where they could be more useful. The Struts framework is widely discussed, and EJBGen has found a little place in the discussion.
It's very nice also to avoid "J2EE for newbies" type of discussion, this book is really starting where many other books and references stop.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous WebLogic reference, thorough coverage
Review: This is the best WebLogic book I have read till now. Author clearly states that this is not a beginners' reference, and I liked the book mainly because it is not; this book gets right into the meaty stuff without wasting pages and time on covering stuff that's splattered all over the internet in numerous free tutorials. This book covers WebLogic 8.1, touches upon features specific to WebLogic (not plain old J2EE stuff) and the coverage is pretty deep. For example, coverage of weblogic-tags taglib for JSP development, or the 'APP-INF' magic folder introduced in WL8.1 for application level libraries (oh, this was like a sore thumb in the previous WL releases and still is in J2EE spec) gives insight into advantages one gets using WebLogic over other J2EE platforms (much better than other books wasting pages and time on advantage of using 'a' J2EE platform). One of the features I loved about this book is the interspersed 'Best Practice' guides, you know reading a best practice guide by itself (like Floyd Marinesku's EJB Design Pattern) can sometimes get boring, here the best practices are put in perspective by discussing them in the right context, juxtaposing them with the problem these best practices address, along with code snippets and all, great job! The discussion on WebLogic clusters is the best I have seen till now and the config/architecture suggestions for development and production environments are very useful.
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