Rating: 
Summary: My Honest Opinion
Review: Contrary to all the other reviews. I bought this book because of the fact that EJB is a very highly regarded field of Java technology, and because this book got so many good reviews, however, I felt that it wasn't exactly adequate. I could barely pay attention to what I was reading through the first three chapters, and it was quite confusing to me. It just seemed to go on and on about the history and the definitions of DCOM, CTM, and EJB using terminology that gave me a headache. Chapter 4 finally got to some actual programming work, but left the reader with little knowledge about setting up the resources needed to actually get the example to work. I had to return the book because I simply didn't have the resources. I downloaded the software that the book suggested, but there is no troubleshooting at all in the book, and though I followed every help guide I could find on the internet, I still could not manage to start up an EJB server. This was on my personal computer though. Also this book offered no help on usage of deployment tools that had to be used to deploy the ejb's, all it said was that you had to use one supplied by the vendor to deploy them. For me, I felt this book was quite inadequate, however, if you already have experience with multi-tier development and are familiar with things like DCOM, CTMs, COBRA, etc... and have the proper resources already set up, then this book might be helpful. I wouldn't recommend it to beginners in Enterprise Java Development though.
Rating: 
Summary: Real Startup Book!
Review: I wonder how the author has covered the topic of EJB in such a small sized book. Great stuff! The running example throught the book really does help the developer understand the concepts behind the EJB still easier. Books starts off with necessary background on RMI and JNDI, which one must understand before making his hands dirty on EJB. The chapter on transactions really doesn't assume any background on the topic and still covers up to the advanced very neatly.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I was looking for an EJB book that would dispense with the "We love Java" credo of other books and get down to the nuts and bolts of EJB. This book does exactly that! I know distributed computing (twenty years in the trenches) and I was pleasantly surprise to find out that the author of this book understands the issues. I recommend this book for people new to distributed computing and veterans alike. Chapters 2 and 3 were great architecture overviews of EJB. The chapter on transactions was a gold mine. The rest of the book is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: excellent book!
Review: I've read the book 3 times - each time, there was something more to absorb from it. You only need to know Java to understand it - it teaches you the rest. Very good diagrams and at the end of the book, there are very easy-to-understand state diagrams. Also, it tells you precisely what operations are valid during each stage of an EJB's lifecycle. As a bonus, it is only 400 some pages and easy to carry around!
Rating:
Summary: Start Here - Best book and VERY well written
Review: It is so refreshing to finally read a book where the author knows what he is talking about AS WELL AS knows how to write. The unfortunate trend in this industry is to write 500++ page monster books filled with brainless examples, attempts at humor, and screen shots ad nauseum. Richard Monson-Haefel (the author) has focused on the topic at hand and avoided unnecessary fluff along the way. He has clearly done his homework, which is obvious just from reading the Acknowledgements. Unlike other books which are filled with pointless graphic images of dialog boxes and enumerated steps on what buttons, keystrokes, and actions the reader should take, this book explains the concepts clearly and in depth, provides complete code listings to show how the concepts work, and accounts for the fact that different platforms require different approaches. I highly recommend this book, even for the beginner to EJB, as the author starts you from the ground up. In addition to the content being excellent, the author's command of English lends to an easy to read and understand book. It is refreshing to finally read a well written book on current technology. I will now always check for O'Reilly published books first.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent EJB Resource
Review: This is book is very helpful. The more I've read in it, the more I've appreciated it. Well worth the price and the effort to concentrate on it! Happily, the book mixes practical examples, including code excerpts, with logically-presented theoretical discussions. As mentioned in other reviews, again and again, the text clearly distinguishes between EJB spec 1.0 and 1.1. (Because different vendors have varying compliance, this is a critical issue.) Also I found the visual aids, such as state diagrams, to be excellent learning tools.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent choice
Review: I found this book an excellent choice. It helped me to understand the design philosophy of Enterprise Java Beans.
Rating:
Summary: A leader in its subject.
Review: In my part of our company we have around a dozen people coding EJBs. All are self taught and all used one of two books, either this one or Ed Roman's Mastering EJBs. Each book has its adherants but personally I'm inclined to give this one the edge. It's slightly smaller and more concise and yet probably covers a little more ground than the other one without any loss in detail. The book is particularly stong on both the overview of EJBs and the differences between versions 1.0 and 1.1. I'd recommend it for anyone who needs to get up to speed quickly on EJBs and can't call on other local expertise for help over the first few hurdles.
Rating:
Summary: A mediocre introduction to EJB
Review: Upon first reading this book, I didn't know to think little of it. Then I took reading other EJB books and found this one wanting for the following reasons: Entity Beans are described prior to describing Session Beans (when Entity Beans can be likened to specialized Stateful Session Beans), at no time did the book clearly and concisely state the bare minimum necessary to implement a Entity and Session Beans, and the book seemed to assume prior knowledge of other Java technologies such as JNDI and RMI. As I stated above, there are other books out there (that I will not name as I believe that I had a review censored for naming a book) that more clearly delineate what an EJB developer needs to know to hit the ground running. Look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended for all Java users.
Review: Now in a new and completely updated edition, Enterprise Javabeans continues to be an essential reference book for all Java users. Richard Monson-Haefel covers Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1 and 1.0; developing entity beans and session beans; container-managed and bean-managed persistence; XML deployment descriptors; the JNDI Enterprise Naming Context (ENC); transaction management; design strategies; bean life cycle; and the relationship between EJB and Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Enterprise Javabeans is thoroughly "user friendly" and will enable even the novice to build complex, mission-critical systems using snap-together software components that model business object sand processes addressing such issues as object persistence, security, and transaction management on entrepreneurial, informational, and personal websites. Highly recommended for all Java users.
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