Rating: 
Summary: Very Superficial.
Review: I have read EJB books by Ed Roman and Richard Monson (O'Reilly) and I believe that this book is totally superficial.
There are no concrete examples to back up the theory.
Now with Third edition of Enterprise JavaBeans by Richard
Monson (O'Reilly) one can buy workbook for weblogic server 6.1,
Websphere and other Web App servers and so I believe that one need not buy vendor specific book.
A good book with thorough knowledge and concrete examples should help.
Moreover, on comparing Ed Romans EJB book and O'Reilly book I found that the presentation, topics covered, style, and examples of Ed Roman's book are "the best" among all the EJB books.
Every theory is backed by short, concise and concrete examples.
Reading is fun rather than concentration.
As smooth as Butter (Makhan Book).
I am very eagerly waiting for his next edition which covers EJB
2.0 and will be out in Jan 2002.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book in designing a good J2EE application
Review: I like this book comparing with other J2EE books because:
1. Reading other J2EE books is like learning driving in a parking lot. This book illustrates how to apply J2EE technology to a real Application Server.
2. This is not a book written by a dozen people in a few months with over 1000 pages.
3. Solid and important advises in the Best practice section for each chapter. Definite a big plus in designing a high traffic volume application.
4. Concise and clear. Cover the most important J2EE technology.
Room for improvement for next edition:
1. Clean up some typo.
2. Add local interface for EJB. (But most people should be able to pick this up in a 2-page long technical article.)
3. Add Web Service if it can live up to its hype.
This book will help you becoming a solid J2EE and Weblogic programmers. However, I should not raise too un-relalistic expection. A lot of hard work is still needed to become a J2EE guru.
Rating: 
Summary: No Help Available
Review: I purchased this book in September 2001. I worked through a few examples and had several problems with versions of WebLogic, build scripts, etc. The author was helpful with the problems and had a web site with corrections and errata. I returned to the book recently (January 2002) and now the website is gone and the author is nowhere to be found. Think twice before you buy this book. Its a good reference but I'd recommend Enterprise Java Beans 3rd Edition coupled with Weblogic Server 6.1 Workbook. There is help available for these books and combined they cover as much if not more ground.
Rating:
Summary: Decent , but could be better...
Review: I think that this was a good attempt at a WebLogic specific J2EE book. It's coverage of WebLogic-specifics is decent. It's coverage of the J2EE API's is mediocre at best. It is oftentimes either erroneous or incomplete. It begs the question: Did anyone review this book before printing, or did they rush it out the door?I found it helpful in navigating and understanding the WebLogic environment. Of course, that environment has changed in 6.1, and I hope that future editions of the book will reflect these changes. Overall, I would recommend this book to readers who have a firm grasp on the concepts of J2EE and want to learn the WebLogic nuances. It is *not* a good primer for J2EE technologies. The "best practices" are valuable, though somewhat superficial.
Rating:
Summary: Major disappointment - great idea, poor execution
Review: I was really looking forward to this book, since it promised to cover WebLogic 6.0. I liked the overall organization of the book and the use of a running example to structure the information. However, although the book covers EJB 2.0 message-driven beans, there is no mention of another important 2.0 feature, local interfaces. Unfortunately, the book is so riddled with errors, and so poorly typeset, that it makes it very distracting to read. In the first four chapters alone, I counted over three dozen errors, many of them in the code listings. Most of the errors are typos rather than conceptual problems. This book needs a good editing pass before they ship a second printing. That said, I still learned a few things from this book. The best practices at the end of each chapter are a nice touch. In general, the book improved in the later chapters, so I'm glad I didn't just give up on the book after the first several chapters. One note: the book ships with an evaluation version of WebLogic 6.0. However, 6.0 was very buggy and by the time the book appeared, 6.1 was already available. I recommend getting a copy of WebLogic 6.1 from the BEA web site instead of using the software on the CD that ships with the book.
Rating:
Summary: A good book for beginners
Review: I would say this is an OK or good book for beginners, but not for advanced users. It touches every aspect of J2EE (JSP, Servlet, EJB and JMS) and references Weblogic whenever applicable. But it does not provide the depth an advanced user is looking for. The screen shots from DOS windows for executing a batch file are not necessary. The paper quality of the book is bad.
Rating:
Summary: Best Weblogic book
Review: I've been developing with Weblogic since back in the Tengah 3.1 days, and I wasn't sure how much I would get out of another J2EE book. However, I definitely learned a lot from this book. The best part about this book are the best practices sections in every chapter. I really found these to be valuable. I've been porting my application to Weblogic 6.1, and these really helped me out. I also liked the sections on performance tuning and capacity planning.
Rating:
Summary: Not Great but best out there for WebLogic 6+
Review: If you buy this book immediately proceed to the authors website - learnweblogic. There you will find errata with all the fixes for the typos and new downloadable code that works with weblogic 6.1 and instructions for setting the main application up. The only issue I had with the new code was an error in the oracle database scripts that I was easily able to fix on my own (btw:you don't have to use oracle). I was disappointed in the fact that the application the author builds during the book (webauction) though covers a wide range of topics, is pretty mediocre-poor error handling, very little, if any validation of user input. On the bright side of things, most topics that you are introduced to get you accustomed to weblogic quickly.
Final thoughts:Go elsewhere if you are not tied down to weblogic. By far the biggest disappointment is that the weblogic license that ships with the book expires after 30 days. Still a must if you use weblogic.
Rating: 
Summary: good oversight if you have to develop for WLS 6
Review: If you have to develop for the Weblogic Server 6, this book gives you quite a good overview/basis. Although BEA has a very good online presence for developers; a book like this one comes in handy, especially before you start your real life "WLS 6 Internet Java J2EE Project". You should already be familiar with the J2EE technologies, though, as this book is not a J2EE primer. Before I define the overall architecture of a real life customer project, I do a prototype to see, if all my ideas on how I would like the final, overall development & deployment, work together well. This book and the CD examples are quite helpful for this task when working on WLS 6. I would thus recommend this book if your project will be deployed on Weblogic, but use other books and online material additionally for the J2EE techniques, on which you decide to develop your project productively.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy this (updated review)
Review: Last fall when I first reviewed this book it was the first Weblogic 6.x book available and the best of breed at the time despite being deeply flawed because the proofreading was poor and most of the examples required fixing before they would work. I may have been the first person to go through this book in detail and I provided detailed eratta to the authors which they published on their website. Today the website appears to be gone. You will be much better off buying Monson-Haefel's Enterprise Javabeans 3rd edition and downloading the Weblogic 6.1 workbook from his website than buying this book now. This is the way to go for a Weblogic beginner IMHO. The best overall EJB book now is the Ed Roman book from the Middleware Company. I am looking forward to an updated version of this book covering the new Weblogic 7.0 (Cajun) product however.
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