Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: I just finished reading this book today. As a member of the EJB community and an author myself, I can confidently say that Richard has done a superb job on this book. My favorite parts are when he goes into how stubs/skeletons work in chapter 1, his section on design strategies, and his accompanying web site. I commend Richard for his great work, and would recommend this book to anyone interested in quickly ramping up on how EJB really works.
Rating: 
Summary: Material is very well organized
Review: I disagree with the previous review. In fact the material is very well organized. Regarding JDBC, either go to java.sun.com and take the jdbc tutorial or get a book on JDBC. There is no need to polute the content of this book with JDBC.
Rating:
Summary: Targeted just about perfectly
Review: In the first few chapters, the author does a marvelous job of explaining the development and deployment process. I would highly recommend this section, particularly for Microsoft MTS developers where much of the infrastructure is hidden. If this was all there was to the book it would be worthwhile. I consider this book indispensable.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes perfect sense if you already understand it.
Review: This book assumes a well grounded knowledge of Java and "some experiance with JDBC". I have the former and none of the latter but I thought I'd give it a try anyhow. I didn't even make it pass the second chapter! This is not due to a lack of knowledge of JDBC since JDBC wasn't even mentioned. The reason is because the subject is inherently complex and the author's organizational skills are deficient. For example, he starts off with a simple reservation system for a cruise line ,defines the various pieces and launches into a description of JAR files and deployment descriptors! He then confesses to "alot of hand-waving about the strange relationships between an enterprise bean and its interfaces"! It's precisely these strange relationships I want to know about! He then admits that "we can't talk as precisely as we'd like"! Excuse me, the reason I dropped serious dough for the book is to understand what's going on underneath the hood. This book only serves to confuse and frustrate. I would definitely NOT recommend this book to someone who doesn't already know something about EJB.
Rating:
Summary: Very honest, Concise and to the point.
Review: The author acknowledges the existance of Microsoft Transaction Server way before EJB. I enjoyed the diagram on page 36 depicting the Bean Class, the Remote Interface and the EJB Object. Since I hate thick books, I like it that this book is only 320 pages.
Rating:
Summary: great examples, thorough explanations
Review: I got alot out of this book. it's easy to understand and covers all the topics of EJBs.
Rating:
Summary: This book will lead you on your way to an EJB world...
Review: The ability of Monson-Haefel to communicate its comprehension of such a technology, had made this book easy to read, and highly understandable. Be just aware that the spec concerned is 1.0...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: This book is excellent. Covers the topics well and is very readable for a technical book. I went through the entire thing in a couple of sittings.
Rating: 
Summary: What makes this book so good?
Review: Dear Reader,Over a year was spent refining the content this book to ensure that it was technically accurate and a pleasure to read. Delivering content that meets these standards isn't easy, and while my name is on the cover, credit is shared with many people. O'Reilly spared no expense engaging the best staff of technical editors available. Ordinarily, a technical book may employ four to six experts who review a book for technical errors and completeness, but to deliver the best quality book possible we used twelve technical editors. This group of EJB experts included engineers from the leading EJB vendors like BEA, IBM, and Gemstone. It also included industry analysts specializing in distributed object systems, like Anne Thomas of the Patricia Seybold Group, and individuals involved in deploying large-scale real-world systems in EJB. Getting the technical details right was critical, but readability was equally important. Working with my friend and O'Reilly editor, Michael Loukides, we went through several drafts and revisions making sure that the content was balanced, fluid, easy to understand, and enjoyable to read. Getting the technical stuff right was easy, making this book a good read was the biggest challenge of my life. I'm proud to say it's the best thing I've ever written. Purchasing an EJB book from Amazon is simple, but choosing a good book is difficult. I hope I have given you an idea of the pains we went through to make this EJB book the best available. I started writing this book in March 1998 and finished in May 1999. It was a long difficult journey and I could have finished earlier, but quality can not be rushed. Thank you for considering my book, Enterprise JavaBeans, and good luck in your career as a distributed object professional. It's an exciting field with unlimited challenges and rewards. Yours truly, Richard Monson-Haefel
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on EJB
Review: It is an excellent book on EJB. I can recommend it to everyone. It first presents an overview on the mechanics, in a second pass it reveils more details, and finally it discusses everything you should know on EJB. I only missed two things: a diagram of the object model (I draw it myself on a separate piece of paper) and a CD with a trial version of an EJB container and the code examples.
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