Book Zone - Comments for "Java EE 5 Development using GlassFish Application Server"

I was cough by the title.

RemisB — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:37:35 -0400

I was cough by the title. From your reply I see that the biggest failure is the title of this book. You thought and wrote book as Java EE 5 tutorial or introduction, easy steps to follow. All samples are based on Glassfish what in fact is very welcomed. And at last, books title which does not point to entry level.

There is also a huge amount of badly written or named books for JBoss. When I first saw this book my thought was, at least I can get some deep insights or something very specific about glassfish server. That was what I was expecting. My expectations failed.

It would be very nice to have a good book about proper designing, best practices, patterns, developing, deploying, support and keeping alive Java EE applications on Glassfish. When I think about Java EE AS I always think about 24x7, uninterrupted update, distributed computing, load balancing, efficient logging and ........

Marketing definition for quality = "Met customers expectations". Expectations

I agree with David. I have

meera — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:11:17 -0400

I agree with David. I have read and reviewed several books myself, and have found that there is something new to learn from every book. The target audience for each and every book are never the same, but they will definitely cater to some audienece.

Remigijus,Sorry to hear the

Eraserman — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:08:11 -0400

Remigijus,

Sorry to hear the book didn't meet your expectations. Unfortunately it is impossible to write a book that meets the needs of developers of all experience levels.

Nobody denies that a good architecture is an essential part of a good Java EE 5 application, however sometimes following strict design patterns and architecture tends to get in the way of writing simple and clear examples, since a lot of the code in the example would not directly relate to the API being discussed, and might confuse, rather than help, developers following the examples hoping to learn a specific API such as EJB 3, JSF or JPA.

I took the approach of writing simple, easy to follow examples, since I felt this approach would be most beneficial for learning the APIs covered in the book.

Regards,

David R. Heffelfinger

Author, Java EE 5 Development Using GlassFish Application Server

Sorry, but this book is very

RemisB — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:18:00 -0400

Sorry, but this book is very entry level and very weak.

There is almost nothing specific to Glassfish in this book. This book is about Java EE 5 with few glassfish screenshots. If we remove glassfish from book's title we will be left with "Java EE 5 Development using Application Server" which will be more appropriate.

If someone needs any information on glassfish there is a mush better quality source http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/1343.4

Even without Glassfish word in book's title, this is very entry level and misleading book.

Who is supposed to be reading such book? What will he learn from it? Will he be able to correctly develop Enterprise application? Doesn't Java EE is more related with architecture than java language and screenshots? What will reader say after reading it? Spring is much better. Of course it's, there is nothing about Java EE, NOTHING.

In this book I found:

architecture - 2 times
pattern (without url-pattern) - 2 times + 1 in index
design - was mentioned only with MVC ant DAO design pattern

Does anybody cares what quality of Java EE 5 application will be produced after reading this book? What will be said about this software and Java EE technology after all?

Java EE is about Enterprise level application's architecture, design, deployment and support.

ps. So much paper, money and effort wasted. Author should do much more reading, before writing.

Sorry if someone been hurt by these words. I guess a lot of you will accept my opinion. This book should be banned. Glassfish does not deserve such low quality books.

I agree completely with the

meera — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:53:00 -0400

I agree completely with the author, if the app server you are using is Java EE 5 compliant, you can just take the jar/ear and deploy to any other server unless you don't have any server specific changes. I have done this with EJB3 and my applications have worked seamlessly with GlassFish and Oracle AS. I am mentioning just these two since most others which do say they are Java EE 5 complaint, didn't deploy well.

BTW, the admin console of GlassFish is very intuitive and user friendly. I had been using most other servers for the past 5 years, it took me just minutes to get GlassFish up and running with no problems whatsoever. And their documentation is just awesome.

I am the book's author. I

Eraserman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:16:20 -0400

I am the book's author. I would like to add a few comments about it:

The book is primarily aimed at software developers, this is the reason it doesn't include a lot of GlassFish configuration information. Individuals interested in a book covering configuration, tuning and things of that nature, may request a new title at Packt Publishing's web site (http://www.packtpub.com), there is a "suggest a title" field near the bottom right of the home page.
One of the advantages of Java EE 5 is that the API's are the same regardless of what application server is being used (assuming, of course, that the app server is Java EE 5 compliant). For this reason, a lot of the development topics are not GlassFish specific.

One advantage that this approach has is that, since GlassFish is open source and available for download free of cost, developers can learn Java EE 5 using GlassFish at home, then use their newly found skills on other expensive application servers that their employer might be using. The book does cover some GlassFish specific deployment descriptors, however I'll admit that the coverage is minimal.

The chapter on security covers some topics that are very much GlassFish specific such as configuring security realms and developing custom security realms.

The book covers most of the Java EE 5 APIs including Servlets, JSPs, JSF, EJB 3, JPA, JMS and web services. Additionally, there is a chapter titled "Beyond Java EE 5" that covers a few technologies that are built on top of the standard. Seam, Facelets and Ajax4jsf are covered in this chapter.

We are all aware that complete books have been written covering every single one of these topics (except Facelets and Ajax4jsf, to the best of my knowledge), therefore the book doesn't cover every nook and cranny of each one of these technologies, instead it focuses on providing information on all of these APIs and how they all work together. Those of us that have been working with Java for a while (I started in 1996) have had the luxury of learning these APIs in chunks, as they are introduced. Developers that started later may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of things to learn, a book covering only servlets or only EJB's for instance, may not give the reader an idea on how to make all of the Java EE 5 technologies work together.

Like Meera said, she will be interviewing me soon, I may provide additional details about the book at that time.

There isn't a good in-depth

greghall — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:16:20 -0400

There isn't a good in-depth Glassfish book that I know of, but I think a lot of people would be really interested in one.

Regards,

Greg.

I am also interviewing the

meera — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:44:36 -0400

I am also interviewing the author of this book, I will ask him more details about GlassFish coverage and keep you all posted.

greghall wrote:I've read

kennethmark — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:19:28 -0400

greghall wrote:

I've read this book. It's well written and provides a good overview of JEE 5, but I there is little in terms of specific Glassfish information.....

I was also expecting more Glassfish expecific on this book. As we already use Glassfish for months we need more details information for configuration, tunning, etc and it is quite disperse right now.

Kenneth

Thanks for your comments on

kawazu — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:19:48 -0400

Thanks for your comments on that, Greg. Can you, then, recommend a book more suitable to those looking for more in-depth Java-EE-on-glassfish coverage?

Thanks and best regards,

Kristian

I've read this book. It's

greghall — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:14:18 -0400

I've read this book. It's well written and provides a good overview of JEE 5, but I there is little in terms of specific Glassfish information. The JEE 5 coverage is wide but not deep. I was hoping for more detail on Glassfish itself, particularly on architecture, configuration and performance trade offs, as I don't find the Sun documentation particularly easy to read.

Regards,

Greg

Hi Meera,By the title yes,

sorend — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:17:34 -0400

Hi Meera,

By the title yes, but only chapter 1 and the appendices looks guaranteed Glassfish specific from the ToC. I guess I will be looking forward to your review and then decide :-)

Regards, Soren

Hi Soren,I haven't read the

meera — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:24:21 -0400

Hi Soren,

I haven't read the book. I have submitted the press release from the publisher. But, in reading the contents and sample chapter, it sure takes a GlassFish specific approach. And hence the title.

While Glassfish already

sorend — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:28:03 -0400

While Glassfish already comes with great free documentation (Sun App Server docs), then this book is also on the top of my wish-list (student, so not in a financial position just to go out and buy when I like :) ).

Does the book have a Glassfish specific approach to the topics covered, or a more general JEE5 angle?

Cheers, Soren

Nice. I have yet to get a

kawazu — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:51:12 -0400

Nice. I have yet to get a good book on glassfish based development anyhow, so this is pretty much on top of my list by now.