Rating: 
Summary: My favorite technical book at the moment
Review: The book is excellent. Gives you a very good insight not only on the role of EJBs in the modern J2EE architecture but the J2EE architecture itself. Terse but interesting and comprehensive.I believe every J2EE programmer of a mid to senior level has to read it and understand the Chapter 6, which is kind of a recap of the book. I wish I worked in a team where every developer has read this book - it would be so much easier to communicate and build a well designed enterprise application. I enjoyed this book better than "Bitter EJBs", although the latter is quite useful too. Now it is time to go for "Core J2EE patterns".
Rating: 
Summary: very good
Review: The first half of this book was great, the reasons for the patterns are well thought out and described. I was a bit disappointed that the patterns ended about halfway into the book, I would have a preferred it if the author had explored the primary topic further, perhaps adding some of the patterns that he references from other books (it's not like he'd be ripping them off, they are common patterns). Overall, one of the better books I've seen, well worth buying.
Rating: 
Summary: Good advice but writing style a bit boring
Review: There are definitely some good ideas in here. The author tries to keep things balanced by presenting the pros and cons of each approach, as well as appropriate situations for their use. While there is little source code in the book itself, the author has a vast repository on his website that is relatively bug-free and easy to understand. My major gripe is that the author's writing style is way too dry, and even interesting subject matter can put me to sleep. While it's nice that the author avoids being preachy, a little bit of enthusiasm would have been nice.
Rating:
Summary: Best EJB architecture book out there.
Review: This book along with the Mastering Enterprise JavasBeans 2nd Edition book by Ed Roman should form the core of every J2EE bookshelf. Roman and Marinescu are the principals of The Middleware Company. They run the theServerSide.com which is merely the best website on J2EE, EJB particularly. Where does this book depart from the crowd of EJB books? Real-world expertise. Marinescu tells you what the best-practices are for EJB and why. He even tells you what the viable alternatives are. He devotes an entire chapter to alternatives to using Entity EJB beans (basically JDO) which has to be a first for an EJB book! Another thing which pleasantly surprises is that this is in no way a rehash of the GOF 'Design Patterns' series. I'm not sneering at this kind of book (Applied Java Patterns is a favorite), but these are fresh patterns very much tailored to EJB experience. I'll buy a book if a single chapter adds to my understanding of something important. But I will be reading and re-reading every single word of this one.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book.
Review: This book is a must read for every J2EE developer. It is well written and clearly describes the major design patterns to use in a J2EE application. The second half is chock-full of tips and best practices regarding the development process, setting up your environment, doing testing, etc. The narrative style (as opposed to the encyclopedia-like style that other Design Patterns books use) makes it a pleasant read, while never becoming long-winded. Quite the contrary: it is packed with information. I'd recommend this book to anyone still anywhere on the learning curve to becoming a J2EE expert. Developers already at the guru stage should certainly browse through the PDF version on TheServerSide - or better: buy (and read!) the book then lend it out to the less enlightened!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book.
Review: This book is a must read for every J2EE developer. It is well written and clearly describes the major design patterns to use in a J2EE application. The second half is chock-full of tips and best practices regarding the development process, setting up your environment, doing testing, etc. The narrative style (as opposed to the encyclopedia-like style that other Design Patterns books use) makes it a pleasant read, while never becoming long-winded. Quite the contrary: it is packed with information. I'd recommend this book to anyone still anywhere on the learning curve to becoming a J2EE expert. Developers already at the guru stage should certainly browse through the PDF version on TheServerSide - or better: buy (and read!) the book then lend it out to the less enlightened!
Rating:
Summary: Lots of good ideas
Review: This is a book that completes other design pattern books. Most of the information is already on the web. However, the author gives alot of easy to understand examples.
Unfortunately if you are looking for larger exmaples or more complex issues this is not the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Rocks and rolls
Review: This is one of the only three books you need. (Besides GOF.) Top of the line. It's disgracefully easy to write a tech book, but it's hard to write a good one. The mark of a good book is not simply that it is accurate but that you can understand it. Clear Only If Known is useless. So Floyd rocks on several points. A) Clarity. Readability. All that good stuff. B) He goes beyond stuff that's just common sense (separate changing and nonchanging stuff is NOT rocket science) and provides some really good direction to overcome serious issues. And C) doesn't just list what to do but tells you whether you should or not, gives some serious cons. (If all patterns were always good, well, life would be a lot different, wouldn't it?) Nice book. Well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent work !! Two thumbs up :-)
Review: Truly an amazing stuff. If you ever have to tackle EJB and all its intricacies, this is definitively a must read !
While the seminal GoF book brilliantly exposed some 20 low level design patterns, this book really takes off and presents us with the both architectural and "implementational" patterns.
From the well-known 'Session Facade' to the more subtle transactional pattterns, learn and apply the best practices in the EJB field.
This book will definitively spare you both time and sweat in successfully tackling the EJB technology ! I think it is also important to mention a few things regarding the way this book has been conceived. With this book, Floyd Marinescu proves to the respected J2EE audience what a truly active community can achieve by sharing knowledge and best practices.
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