Rating: 
Summary: A must have book for how to *use* 1.4
Review: For those people who want to know what's coming and how to use J2EE 1.4 then this book is for you. If you're after how to implement J2EE 1.4, then look elsewhere (though I think this book could still be of use).I came at this after having waded through the current 1.4 spec. and some pretty poor J2EE 1.3 books. It was an eye-opener: the whole structure of the book hit me as being so good - all of the stuff I needed to know about was up front, with more esoteric (for me) work like Web services towards the back. Where were these guys when I needed a good J2EE 1.3 book?! Since getting it, I've read the book cover-to-cover twice just to make sure I understand some of the more complex issues. The authors definitely know how to put some of these things into context and it was a pleasure to read. A few chapters are a little heavy going, but that's probably just me. At the moment I can't think of a better book to read on the subject of J2EE and specifically version 1.4. And I've tried quite a few!
Rating: 
Summary: Cool book and well written
Review: Good book on J2EE 1.4, that's well written and structured. Fairly obviously the authors know their stuff and have the skills necessary to translate that into readable text (something many other books fail to do). I found this a wonderful read and it uses a good example that is followed throughout the various chapters. My 2 cents work: well written, clear, concise (despite its size!), well structured and by authors who have influenced the J2EE standards. What more can I say except go and get it!
Rating:
Summary: The experts speak out
Review: Great book, written by people who've influenced J2EE over many years. These guys have worked for/with IBM, HP, BEA, Sun and many other important vendors in this space and it shows. Great depth of knowledge and something to keep me going until J2EE 1.5 comes out! Hopefully the publishers will produce an update to fill in a few of the blanks since this book was written, but it's not strictly necessary.
Rating:
Summary: The definitive text - a must have on all shelves
Review: I almost missed out on reading this book after seeing some of the negative reviews. However, I had $40 burning a hole in my pocket when browsing and decided to take the hit and just see for myself. After the first read my initial thought was "WOW!", then the next thought was "Did the negative reviewers read the same book?" This is a great text, whether or not it's entirely up to date is pretty immaterial. As many others have already said, the structure of the book is really good, leading you from one topic to the next in a natural way. It's easy to get into difficult subjects and not know about it until you're through the other end! I was really impressed with the depth of knowledge, the presentation, the worked examples, the hints, and a 1001 other things that made me glad I didn't save my money for something else. If like me you're unsure about what to do to get into J2EE 1.4 then you can't do better IMO than getting hold of this book. Grab it from a friend if you can't afford the price, or if you're still unsure, but *do* read it. You're not going to find another text this comprehensive and readily understandable in a long while. Don't save your money - the money I spent wasn't a waste, it was an investment that is already showing dividends!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing with obsolete code and content
Review: I am really disappointed with this book, which is outdated and obsolete in both both code and content. If you are an aspiring J2EE develper, then the content and code discussed book will lead you to a dead end. The code is mostly deprecated and just don't work. The content is obsolete by 2 revsions. The authors ignored lot of new features of J2EE..a long list to add here. You will be better of reading the J2EE 1.4 tutorial with examples posted in the Java site than reading this obsolete junk. SAVE YOUR MONEY.
Rating: 
Summary: Good introduction to J2EE, occasionally sloppy
Review: I bought this book because I needed an overview of J2EE technology, and I wanted something with a lot of breadth. With the notable exception of web services, I feel that this book delivered on that promise.
After reading the book, it will still be necessary to read and learn the various technologies in more depth, but the book provides a good roadmap.
The strength of the book is its breadth, covering everything from servlets to EJBs to logging APIs to build tools. Because the book covers so much, it is able to give a sense of how all of these technologies fit together for web application development.
The weakness of the book is its uneven quality. Some sections, such as the one on servlets, are written in great detail, and other sections, such as the one on web services, are simply a consolidation of material from other documents, poorly explained.
My biggest complaint about this book, in the context of it being an overview or roadmap, is that the section on web services is awful. I doubt the author understood much about the technologies in that section because a lot of material is copied from other sources without adequate explanation, and the text has the look of a padded english essay. ("This attribute is another very important part of processing.") In addition, some of the inline editing comments from prepublication are still in the text! ("Deleted, if so WHY?---JG") JG makes a few appearances in the web services chapters. There are also clearly some copy/paste errors in these sections.
Aside from that, there is the occasional poor programming practice, such as classes declared with "extends Object".
On balance, however, the good outweighs the bad, and I am now happily oriented, and ready to learn some of these technologies in more detail.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book to understand concepts of J2EE
Review: I happened to read some excerpts from the book and I feel that they have taken an extra effort to make the audience understand the concepts before getting into the details unlike other books. Most chapters start off with a simple-world scenario which tends to get you interested in the topic rather than make you close the book!!! I would highly recommend this book. The concepts are precise and easy to understand. They should have included some more examples in the book. Other than that a sure BUY...
Rating:
Summary: Great book on J2EE
Review: I met the lead author while awaiting a flight in Puerto Rico and had the opportunity to discuss advanced J2EE techniques. He really knows his stuff. I have also ordered two additional books from him.
Rating:
Summary: Waste
Review: I read every page of this book. It was a complete waste of my time and money. I'm asking for a refund. There was no detail that helped me. While I'm not a new testament kind of guy, I expected more from a "Bible".
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I was pretty disappointed with this book. Let me say first that I made the mistake of ordering it online without enough of a look at the book or contents or looking for other options. However, while you can not judge a book by its cover or title, I thought that I could at least judge it by its cover description and table of contents. I was wrong. First off, the book is at way too basic and at high of a level to be useful for developers. There just isn't nearly enough detail. The writing is also too academic and reads like it was copied from a specification. I buy books to learn how to do something and reading specs doesn't help me do that. Secondly, the organization is pretty bad in parts of the book. Some writing doesn't even belong in the book and there isn't a good flow to the reading. What is worse is that some writing is hard to even understand no matter how many times I read it. I can guess that this is do to the use of way too many authors and apparently some have written specifications. That should have been my warning. Adding insult to injury, some of the examples don't even work. Period. At first I felt bad thinking about giving a bad review to anyone, but as I thought about it, I thought that other people need to know about the book's content before they do something stupid like I did. Not because of money but because of time wasted. The book might be good as a very light read, but it is in no way a good book for the audience of developers.
| 
