J2EE FrontEnd Technologies: A Programmer's Guide to Servlets, JavaServer Pages, and JavaBeans

Rating:
Summary: Fairly detailed and yet limited
Review: "J2EE FrontEnd Technologies" refers to itself as a "programmer's guide" and that is probably the best description of it. While it also claims to be "chock full of code examples" and contains "what you need to know," it falls short in both these areas. What you will find is a fairly detailed and yet limited explanation of the three major J2EE technologies, servlets, JSPs, and EJBs. Although you will find extensive information for these three areas, there are many details left out and there is little attempt made to tie the three pieces together. For example, you will not find any examples of linking servlets and JSPs other than by using the Struts framework. You will also find no more than a brief mention of message driven EJBs. There are numerous UML diagrams throughout the book but in many cases they add little beyond what you can get from looking at the APIs. The examples in the book tend to be overly simplistic, in some cases wasting many pages to show an example that could have been summarized in a few lines of code. The best section of the book is the section on EJBs. The author's detailed description of EJB deployment descriptors is better than what you will find in most EJB books. This section also features the most complete examples found in the book. Overall this book does contain value, although it fails as an introduction or tutorial on the technologies that it covers.

Rating:
Summary: Fairly detailed and yet limited
Review: "J2EE FrontEnd Technologies" refers to itself as a "programmer's guide" and that is probably the best description of it. While it also claims to be "chock full of code examples" and contains "what you need to know," it falls short in both these areas. What you will find is a fairly detailed and yet limited explanation of the three major J2EE technologies, servlets, JSPs, and EJBs. Although you will find extensive information for these three areas, there are many details left out and there is little attempt made to tie the three pieces together. For example, you will not find any examples of linking servlets and JSPs other than by using the Struts framework. You will also find no more than a brief mention of message driven EJBs. There are numerous UML diagrams throughout the book but in many cases they add little beyond what you can get from looking at the APIs. The examples in the book tend to be overly simplistic, in some cases wasting many pages to show an example that could have been summarized in a few lines of code. The best section of the book is the section on EJBs. The author's detailed description of EJB deployment descriptors is better than what you will find in most EJB books. This section also features the most complete examples found in the book. Overall this book does contain value, although it fails as an introduction or tutorial on the technologies that it covers.

Rating:
Summary: This book helps to quickly develop deeper insight in J2EE
Review: I found this book to be very well written, organized and helpful in learning J2EE concepts. The book is very easy to read. Author is very experienced and discusses pros and cons for various decisions programmers and designers have to make. The topics covered include Servlets, Shopping Cart Example, Struts, JSP and EJB.

Illustrations used throughout the book for describing classes, packages and working of programs is excellent. UML is used extensively in the book. Class diagrams and Interaction diagrams are used throughout the book to explain Java Servlet API and it's working. Screen dumps and nice figures are used to give pictorial views of situations being discussed. This helped me quickly understand various concepts.

At various places, the author explains reasons for deprecating some methods in the API. He also gives examples of such cases. This helped me learn some better programming skills and made me aware of common design mistakes. The author explains many design choices from security point of view also.

In my opinion the book is an excellent buy.

Rating:
Summary: For geeks
Review: I spent a long time... trying to decide between this book and Budi Kurniawan's "Java for the Web with Servlets, JSP, and EJB" - the only two I can find that give an integral treatment of this trinity of J2EE technology.

I ultimately decided to go with Kurniawan's book mainly because he is a better teacher and explainer, and that the book is better organized. Jorelid's book is for you if you are a hard-cored geek to whom reading UML and standard specs is second-instinct. He started the book - chapter 1 - with an extended, class-by-class coverage of the servlet package - no practical example until chapter 2. There ARE flashes of brilliance here and there though, for example his lucid explanation of the evolution of servlet-collaboration technology, from direct invocation to filters. However, the lack of sub-chapter headings in the TOC makes it VERY difficult to locate a specific topic.

Jorelid scores a clear point over Kurniawan in covering struts. But then he does not provide the still-larger discussion of application design (e.g. a chapter dedicated to a sample project from design to deployment, showing how to translate UML from design/analysis into servlets, JSP and EJBs - where his use of UML would be most justified).

In short, you may like it if you are a Wrox kinda guy. For other mortals, Kurniawan is a gentler guide.