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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for JDBC, Poor for JNDI and JAXP
Review: I came to Amazon looking for good books on JNDI and JAXP. So when I found this book that was supposed to cover both of these topics, I was quite pleased and bought it. Unfortunately, what I found out is that there is one chapter on JNDI, one chapter on JAXP, one chapter on EJB, and the other 16 chapters are on JDBC. I found the JNDI coverage to be acceptable, but certainly very short, and lacking in some areas. I found the JAXP coverage to be almost useless.
Although I know JDBC well, I figured I might as well read the rest of the book to recover some value from my purchase. I was surprised to find that the JDBC chapters were excellent. I learned many new things that I did not know about JDBC. Overall, I would say that this is the best JDBC coverage I've seen in any book.
So, if you're looking for a JDBC book I believe you'll be extremely pleased with this book. For just the JDBC section, I would give the book a perfect 5 rating.
However, if you are looking for a JAXP or JNDI book I believe you will be quite disappointed. For those topics I would give the book a 2 rating.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for JDBC, Poor for JNDI and JAXP
Review: I came to Amazon looking for good books on JNDI and JAXP. So when I found this book that was supposed to cover both of these topics, I was quite pleased and bought it. Unfortunately, what I found out is that there is one chapter on JNDI, one chapter on JAXP, one chapter on EJB, and the other 16 chapters are on JDBC. I found the JNDI coverage to be acceptable, but certainly very short, and lacking in some areas. I found the JAXP coverage to be almost useless.
Although I know JDBC well, I figured I might as well read the rest of the book to recover some value from my purchase. I was surprised to find that the JDBC chapters were excellent. I learned many new things that I did not know about JDBC. Overall, I would say that this is the best JDBC coverage I've seen in any book.
So, if you're looking for a JDBC book I believe you'll be extremely pleased with this book. For just the JDBC section, I would give the book a perfect 5 rating.
However, if you are looking for a JAXP or JNDI book I believe you will be quite disappointed. For those topics I would give the book a 2 rating.
Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but a great find
Review: This was one of those books I bought because I *really* needed some documentation on the JDBC that I couldn't find anywhere after poking around and googling up a storm. So, I took a chance before reading the reviews and was plesantly surprised. This book does have some duplicated material that can be found in less than a minute of googling, but its it really the middle of the book where the meat resides. The author's sample programs are well done and their writing style is easy to follow. Given that about 60% of the material is both useful and not easily found elsewhere this makes it a computer book above most others.
Rating: 
Summary: An Effective Tutorial, a Solid Guidebook, and a Great Read
Review: When I pulled this book off the shelf, it just felt right, like all the pieces I needed were there. I'd been looking for a JDBC-type book for some time, but I didn't want a simple quick reference that left me wondering how to code for applications. I also didn't care to sift through a 1,000-page API reference in order to understand what JDBC was all about. This book is something completely and impressively different.This is not a book for newcomers to the Java language, though I suspect anyone who's developed in Java will be able to follow along quite well. In fact, it's the author's writing style that makes learning JDBC almost effortless. The examples are numerous, easy to follow, and largely independent. However, the author frequently ties the concepts together nicely and it's plain to see how the examples may be incorporated into larger applications. I like that approach. Another thing I especially appreciated was the author's effort to provide useful tips for solving real-world problems. In many cases, Todd provided an example implementation, but would describe cases where such an implementation may not be the most appropriate solution. Then, he would either give a short description of what to do instead or provide a snippet of code. That's a mark of a good instructor. Other enjoyable and extremely useful parts of the book include patterns for implementation, discussion of JDBC data types and how they may differ for some databases, attention to the use of result set meta data, overview of EJB and JDBC uses, and various means for connecting to data sources including JNDI and LDAP. There's even a complete framework for wrapping JDBC calls within application logic. All of this is presented in the context of JDBC 2.0 and 3.0 and Todd clearly defines the version differences as they relate to implementation where appropriate. I must point out that a few of the chapters were written by contributing authors, specifically chapters 15, 17, 18, and 19 (from what I can tell). These chapters are less related to JDBC itself but do concern the topic of "data access;" though, you may find that these chapters naturally have a somewhat different feel. I can hardly imagine buying another JDBC book because I believe I've found most, if not all, of what I need. With great authors like Todd teaching us, we'll all end up experts!
Rating:
Summary: An Effective Tutorial, a Solid Guidebook, and a Great Read
Review: When I pulled this book off the shelf, it just felt right, like all the pieces I needed were there. I'd been looking for a JDBC-type book for some time, but I didn't want a simple quick reference that left me wondering how to code for applications. I also didn't care to sift through a 1,000-page API reference in order to understand what JDBC was all about. This book is something completely and impressively different. This is not a book for newcomers to the Java language, though I suspect anyone who's developed in Java will be able to follow along quite well. In fact, it's the author's writing style that makes learning JDBC almost effortless. The examples are numerous, easy to follow, and largely independent. However, the author frequently ties the concepts together nicely and it's plain to see how the examples may be incorporated into larger applications. I like that approach. Another thing I especially appreciated was the author's effort to provide useful tips for solving real-world problems. In many cases, Todd provided an example implementation, but would describe cases where such an implementation may not be the most appropriate solution. Then, he would either give a short description of what to do instead or provide a snippet of code. That's a mark of a good instructor. Other enjoyable and extremely useful parts of the book include patterns for implementation, discussion of JDBC data types and how they may differ for some databases, attention to the use of result set meta data, overview of EJB and JDBC uses, and various means for connecting to data sources including JNDI and LDAP. There's even a complete framework for wrapping JDBC calls within application logic. All of this is presented in the context of JDBC 2.0 and 3.0 and Todd clearly defines the version differences as they relate to implementation where appropriate. I must point out that a few of the chapters were written by contributing authors, specifically chapters 15, 17, 18, and 19 (from what I can tell). These chapters are less related to JDBC itself but do concern the topic of "data access;" though, you may find that these chapters naturally have a somewhat different feel. I can hardly imagine buying another JDBC book because I believe I've found most, if not all, of what I need. With great authors like Todd teaching us, we'll all end up experts!
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