5 comments about Java Database Best Practices.

1. I have just seriously reading the chapters about EJB, JDBC, Servlet and JSP, I found that there are some tricks I have used but I have not stated the reason, this book provides some short and brief reasoning for each tips to clarify why I need to do and not to do. It is very handy to me, even I explained that to my associate consultants, I don't need a long conversation. I believe the author does not mean we need to follow the best practice but hope that developers/architect can outline a set of standard/practice for the development. It is the main reason for us to read. If you have your own standard, programmer A has his/her own style, then it is hard to trace and maintain the system.



2. I really like reading this book. This book discusses a lot of database concepts. The author talks about how to use the javax.sql libraries. I found the book easy to read. I found the snippets of code useful. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn advanced concepts on databases with JAVA.

   Michael




3. This book barely scratches the surface of the persistence domain.
   There is a review and brief comparison of different approaches but by no means an in-depth account for each.

   Still searching for that perfect book...




4. This book has the potential to become a "must have" book in a future edition. But the current edition has the feel of a book that was rushed to press without really being ready. Some of the best practices are not well explained or even explained at all. Occasionally, they are not worded carefully enough or even seem to contradict each other. The syntax errors (which are more common in the tutorial chapters) highlight this rushed feel.

   Overall, though, I think the book has useful content, and I learned some neat stuff from it. I'm hoping that another, more carefully written and reviewed edition gets published.




5. I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand I really liked the discussion of persistence models using J2EE. It was a great tutorial on the various options a J2EE developer has when dealing with databases. On the other hand, I'm disappointed that there wasn't more lower level type discussions. I ended the book feeling as if the "best practice" in Java database development is to avoid direct database development altogether and let an application server deal with it for me.
   
   I develop standalone client/server type database applications more than anything else. I very rarely touch an application server. And unfortunately, only 2 or 3 chapters in this book were useful to me. Everything else was application server specific.
   
   If you're doing straight JDBC development, skip this book and go for a pure JDBC book, as you'll not really get anything new or useful here. If you develop web applications, this book is definitely right up your alley.

No comments about Modern Software Development Using Java, Second Edition.

5 comments about Developing Applications with Java(TM) and UML (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series).

1. This is a one-in-a-million technology book that makes sense from multiple angles. Most UML books are written by researchers that tend to have a myopic view on a project's scope. My impression from reading the book is that Paul Reed, the author, knows the theory and is experienced at practicing this theory - a rare find.

   This book fully encompasses a whole project view and succesfully involves/educates the reader.

   Let me explain : It is challenging to develop a book that covers OOP, UML, Rational Unified Process(RUP), Java/J2EE, Application Servers/IDE etc. Also most publishers will not touch such a subject assuming it will narrow the potential readership.

   Having heap all the flatery, I must add some caution - to fully make sense of the book the rader must be somewhat familiar with some of the concepts - i.e. OOP, Java. Otherwise it can be hard to grasp.

   I would recommend this book to developers/managers that wish to enhance their requirements process in software development.

   In this book you can expect to visualise the role of UML in the full cycle of a project. The development process followed is RUP. There are nice background information on how to enhance the productivity of the development team in the design stages. The project discussed is a typical J2EE set-up - JSP, Servlets, choice of Javabeans and EJB, choice of Tomcat or BEA WebLogic and a Microsoft SQL Server (or Oracle) as the back-end.

   I hope this review helps - please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

   Thank you.




2. This is an excellent book for programmers new to Java, UML and Java architecture. This is not a complete book on UML, patterns, EJB or Java but that is not its intention. The author does an excellent job of taking the rational unified process and UML and breaking it down to the relevant artifacts and diagrams. It contains excellent examples and doesn't try to over simplify. I highly recommend this book to development teams that are beginning to embark on Java web applications from other programming languages.

   My only warning is that if you are unfamiliar with basic Java patterns (session façade, controller), you may get a little lost. It helps to have a basic understanding of Java and OOP. The book does get into EJBs but not enough to start coding your own EJB application but you will get the big picture and that is the best way to view this book.

   This book was required reading for a project that we are currently doing. I am managing a team with some developers new to Java but had extensive VB experience. They found that this book helped then "think in Java"

   I supplemented my reading with other books like Mastering Enterprise Java Beans by Ed Roman and the Sun J2EE Core Patterns Book. There is a decent book called Advanced Case Modeling if you want to get a different view on use case designs.

   I would like to add that the book uses a session façade controller for each use case. The book doesn't really stress the consequences of doing this. The definition of a use case is as quite broad. Some architects prefer fine-grained use cases to course-grained. This book has you using course-grained. This is important so that you don't end up with too many controllers which can translate to hundreds of session beans. Make sure that you develop your use cases in a course-grained manner to avoid this problem. In addition, the book's example uses value object creation at the entity bean level. This could be abstracted to a value bean assembler.




3. .. and I have read many, I assure you...
   This book is a shame. Written in a cocky, airy style, could be good only for an executive who feels like reading some buzzword about these strange terms J2EE and EJB he' s been hearing about lately so that he can think he knows something about it. Value
   to the prgrammer really interested in the theory: ZERO. Value
   to the programmer interesting in coding and in a hands on approach: ZERO. Don't be fooled by the fact that the book is advertised as presenting an exmaple application: can you say you are presenting an EXAMPLE application with a couple code snippets and ONE sequence diagram???



4. This book is tremendous on theory, but horrible on actual usage. I picked it up several times and was never able to get through it, and I don't believe you could ever get an entire team of developers to read, understand and implement the theories in this book.

   Unless your sole job is UML, I don't know how one would ever find time to get through this book. Perhaps my view will change after I develop a better understanding of UML.




5. I am taking a masters course in designing J2EE applications, and this book has been incredibly helpful. It shows the design of a web-based application, with sample use-cases, sequence diagrams, and deployment diagrams. It is light on the actual code, but you can get that from the online J2EE tutorial from SUN.
   
   The author does a great job explaining the steps in designing a solution, and the book made me truly understand the flow of UML diagrams, and how to go from one diagram to the other. I finally understood the logical progress from use-cases to class diagrams, to sequence diagrams, and finally to EJB beans, html pages, and servlets.
   
   I can recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how to design J2EE applications, but be sure to bookmark the J2EE tutorial so you can look up the technical details.

5 comments about Covert Java: Techniques for Decompiling, Patching, and Reverse Engineering.

1. May be my expectations were too high but I was kind of disappointed by this book.
   I was hoping to find things like getting a thread dump programmatically and more useful examples.
   I think that this book is for beginners to intermediate level not for advanced level developers.



2. I know that I am reading a high quality computer book when I absolutely have to stop and try the code examples. When I have to download a tool in order to execute the code, then it truly is a book to behold. That happened with this book. As I began reading chapter 2 on decompiling Java bytecode, I immediately went online and downloaded some of the tools. It was a fascinating and also disturbing experience. Java bytecode is of course not in a machine-specific executable form, so it is relatively easy to reconstruct the original source code. From this point on, examples of decompiling Java bytecode will be part of my class on computer security.
   The topic of chapter 3 is obfuscating classes, something that I already cover in my security class. However, I derived several new ideas for examples from this section. Chapter 4, "Hacking Non-public Methods and Variables of a Class" was one I found fascinating, although somewhat obvious in retrospect. For years, I have used an example of accessing the private components of a C++ object in my classes, and now I will be dong something similar in my Java classes.
   Chapter 7, "Manipulating Java Security", which demonstrated how easy it is to bypass security checks, was fascinating, another demonstration of the level of vigilance needed to keep our computers safe from the malicious entities. The remaining chapters are:

   * Chapter 5 Replacing and patching application classes.
   * Chapter 6 Using effective tracing.
   * Chapter 8 Snooping the runtime environment.
   * Chapter 9 Cracking code with unorthodox debuggers.
   * Chapter 10 Using profilers for application runtime analysis.
   * Chapter 11 Load-testing to find and fix scalability problems.
   * Chapter 12 Reverse engineering applications.
   * Chapter 13 Eavesdropping techniques.
   * Chapter 14 Controlling class loading.
   * Chapter 15 Replacing and patching application classes.
   * Chapter 16 Intercepting control flow.
   * Chapter 17 Understanding and tweaking bytecode.
   * Chapter 18 Total control with native code patching.
   * Chapter 19 Protecting commercial applications from hacking.

   There is no doubt that there is enough knowledge in this book to allow you to hack Java applications. Therefore, there will be those who consider it dangerous. My opinion is that someone with the hacker mentality will find the knowledge and use it. To criticize a book because it concentrates the knowledge misses the point of how hackers should be battled. To defeat hackers you must learn how to hack code and perform due diligence by making all the changes that will make it hard to do.
   I learned a great deal from this book. Some of it was general, in that I had not realized how unsecure Java bytecode is. Most of my new knowledge was specific; I learned many different things that can be done to fix bad code, whether the problems are in code failure or in lack of security.




3. Book was on time and in excellent (new) condition. 5 big fat stars!



4. If you are looking for java fundamentals, this is a wrong book. However, if you want to broaden your horizons on various practical techniques of working with java, this is an excellent source. The information in the book is offered in a condensed form with good amount of real-world examples and recomendations/comparisons of various tools. I enjoyed reading this book and I recommend it to everyone who wants to jump start their practical knowledge of things listed in the book's title.



5. Very little useful information that can't be found through free resources on the web or your own investigations. The book jumps from topic to topic providing only a cursory look at basic investigitory techniques. I'm amazed it got published at all given the rather sophomoric approach to a difficult subject. I was expecting detailed strategy and tactics for decompiling java classes and instead ended up with what reads like someone's blog of ideas or musings on the subject. Not very professional.

5 comments about Sams Teach Yourself J2EE in 21 Days (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself).

1. The book's case studies, code and build files assume that J2EE 1.4 comes
   with the PointBase database server. J2EE 1.4 currently only comes bundled with the Derby database server. As a result, the book is useless. Emails to the publisher failed to resolve the problem.



2. The different authors write different chapters defining some things differently.
   
   The material is outdated, you'll constantly have to update their junk to make it work.
   
   Way too verbose and bouncing back and forth within an individual chapter (just try those two early BMP/CMP chapters).
   
   It's just not worth $1.
   
   Use the sun tutorials for a much better and much much clearer start.



3. The book and the code you download from Sam's website is based on a Pointbase embedded database, but Java J2EE now comes with a Derby database, so you aren't able to create and install your database. I suppose this book would work as a reference manual for some things, but you definitely won't be able to teach yourself much.



4. This book covers a wide range of key points in the Java2EE technology, very complete reference for begginers and advanced programmers.



5. I am a (software development) middle manager with a background as a C programmer. Every 2-3 years I'll buy 1 book + products to try to stay relatively current with industry evolution. I bought VB 4.0 & MS Access and was able to use the VB 4.0 documentation alone to build a fairly elaborate application. I bought Borland JDeveloper & Oracle and with the help of Teach Yourself Java in 21 days was able to migrate my application to (i.e. rewrite my application for) Java/Oracle. Now I acquired J2EE from Sun and mySQL with a view to migrating the same application, bought this book, and find that this book is of absolutely no help whatsoever. This book is reliant on downloadable samples (which are now out-of-date and unusuable) and fails to explain what I want: nuts-and-bolts construction of a "Hello World" type program where I hand-craft a JSP, a servlet, a session bean and an entity bean using the mySQL database (which I had up and running within 1 hour of download) to extract the "Hello" and the "World" from 2 separate columns in a database table, and hand-craft the deployment descriptors needed to package & deploy the application.
   
   This book is shelved. When I figure out what I want to learn from other sources, I'm inclined to try to write an alternative text to recoup my wasted $50+.

5 comments about Introduction to Programming and Object-Oriented Design Using Java.

1. For nearly two decades, the computer science department at the University of New Orleans has had the outstanding reputation of possessing one of the finest academic programs in software engineering in the south. A huge part of this reputation can be attributed to the presence of two legendary software designers at the department, Professor Fred Hosch and Professor Jaime Nino. Now, for the benefit of those who are unable to experience the expertise of these two professors first-hand, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. proudly presents An Introduction to Software Construction with Java, the very first textual authority ever to be written by Professors Hosch and Nino. Although no substitution for the professors themselves, this paperback mentor will teach you how to program and program well.

   Unlike any other textual teaching tools on the subject of software construction today, such as Java In a Nutshell by David Flanagan, Hosch and Nino's text is geared towards the novice programmer, that is, an introductory-level student who does not even know the meaning of the phrase "computer science." In this textbook, the authors first define what it means to be a software engineer. Then, they will take you by the hand and teach you the basic syntax and grammar of the Java language. You will learn how to define variables and construct objects. You will know what the concept of "object-oriented designing" means.

   Next, these authors will teach you what no other books on software that I have read thus far will teach you: how to design a good software system. These authors will teach you how to construct interaction diagrams and how to use them so that you can implement well-organized relationships between clients and servers. You will fully understand and appreciate the extremely important, yet often overlooked, concept of designing a good programming by contract relationship between objects. Often, I see textbooks presenting as examples to students implementations that Hosch and Nino would refer to as a "house of cards." In other words, the relationships between the objects in such examples are so unnecessarily complex that any minute modifications to these poor implementations will cause the collapse of their entire software structure.

   A programmer, by definition, is one who can implement software systems that execute properly. What, then, is the definition of a good programmer? A good programmer is one who knows how to implement software so that it can solve a problem within the least amount of time possible. How do you gauge the time complexity of a software system? Hosch and Nino will present you with a classical tool for measuring software speed that is guaranteed to increase the efficiency of your designs in no time.

   Other topics covered in this book include: constructing lists, guidelines to writing better comments and documentations, techniques for building maintainable and adaptive software that completely encapsulates a single notion, techniques for optimizing your software's interface via the principle of information hiding, handling exceptions and failures, developing graphical user interfaces that adhere to the model-view-controller pattern, constructing advanced containers, such as dynamic arrays, linked lists, stacks, dictionaries, queues, and hash tables, and, finally, learning how to develop your very own software library.

   So, if you are a software developer or are just remotely interested in the craft of software engineering, I urge you to buy this book and let Hosch and Nino, two legendary professors from the University of New Orleans, teach you the proper marksmanship of legendary programming.




2. I've been a designer/multimedia developer for the past 10 years (using Director/Lingo and Dreamweaver/HTML and After Effects). Until recently, I'd been sorely underdeveloped in the areas of scripting and application customization (not to mention application development) since I had only a very basic understanding of programming concepts and tended to use "black box" code off the web, which I'd modify to suit my purposes. I'd studied Java at Career Centers (a NYC-based training facility) but although I had learned the syntax and general usage, I was missing a foundation in the underlying programming concepts...

   A month ago I decided to buckle down and learn core programming techniques. I found this book, and it has served me WELL. (Paid $40 for a used copy).

   I'm not sure how frustrating this book would be to someone who had never seen Java before, or had little knowledge of the scope of the language. However, if you're a "scrip kiddie" or a developer with a "working knowledge" of programming tools, but no thorough understanding of core techniques -- this book is for you!




3. This book, in my opinion, is probably one of the few better introduction books that should be widely used in many intro computer courses. I have programmed for many years, and I have learned that I have made the same mistake in the past that I know many others have done, when they first started programming. The problem I am talking about is when some people program, they just go up to the keyboard and screen and just type, which I have learned from this book that it is very wrong to do. I have learned from this book that when one programs, he/she has to have some kind of design implementation (UML) set and ready before going to turn the designs to code. As an introductory book, this will teach beginner programmers the correct way to program, without the sloppy coding techniques.
   The first two chapters are a good explanation to how computers process code and the meaning of object-orientation. The next couple of chapters gives a brief overview of what Java is and how Java ties in with object-oriented design. If one already has Java experience, I think he/she can just skip these chapters, because it may get repetitive to the eyes. For beginner Java-ers, the book gives excellent pure examples in Java, without any confusing documentation or coding.
   Then comes Chapter 10 and on... These chapters covered are for Java programmers who have already passed the Beginner's stage, but feel they need to 'dip their feet' in Java water a little more before declaring themselves as proficient Java-ers. These chapters cover excellent computer terminology and basic computer aspects (lists, sorts, searches, abstractions) and classic algorithmic ideas. The last couple of chapters deal with introduction to Exceptions (Java) and GUI Applets, after dealing with TUI most of the book.
   So in closing, a good book for introduction, but if you do have experience in Java, then you still would find the book useful, with a handful of excellent defined computer programming terminology and examples. Also, I took the class with one of the authors (Dr. Jaime Nino) and he is truly an exceptional professor at heart who loves his programming.



4. This is an ideal book for those that want to learn Java with a college textbook. Starting with the basics each chapter is well written and illustrated and has a series of questions at the end to help you test your knowledge of what you have just learned. UML is used throughout as the illustration language. Later chapters deal with algorithms (e.g. storage, sorting, searching, etc.)
   
   All of the features of the Java language are covered. Swing is used to teach the basics of UI. There is nothing on web application work. Collections are taught using the new generics features of Tiger.
   
   A good book for those looking to learn how to program, and who want to start with the Java language and object-oriented design.



5. If you already know quite a little about Java (I mean, you have finished reading at least one whole book about Java basics), maybe this is a good book to explore the OO aspects of Java. But this book is definitely NOT for the beginners. It is crazy to use it as a textbook in an intro CS class. If you happen to be a self-study guy, it would be a nightmare.

No comments about Object-Oriented Programming featuring Graphical Applications in Java.

No comments about Object-Oriented Design Using Java.

5 comments about Java and SOAP.

1. This book came out from O'Reilly in Spring of 2002 about the same time they published Java Web Services. If these had been combined and editing together, they would have had a star book on their hands instead of two average books. I can't say anything particularly bad about this book, but nothing particularly good either. If you're getting started with Web Services using Java, this and the title above are both decent sources to get you going.



2. Overview -
   SOAP is what makes the Web Services clock go around. In fact, SOAP can easily be used as a stand-alone channel without incurring the overheads of publish-find-and-bind cycle apparent in Web Services. Java's ever growing XML support makes it a language of choice for anyone considering implementing SOAP.

   Why you should read this book -
   Whether you are writing a new SOAP service or simply using an existing one, understanding what happens under the bonnet helps make your system more robust.

   What this book covers -
   This book covers almost everything you have to know about how Java supports the technology - core APIs, SOAP encoding, structure of SOAP messages, attachments, platform interoperability issues and some nice guidelines. It also includes some getting-started examples with two different SOAP servers- Apache and GLUE ? to help the reader understand how SOAP implementation differs. There is some introductory material covering JAX-RPC, JAXM, Apache Axis and WSDL. The chapters are well organized although the writing lacks reader-friendly approach.

   Cons -
   The book came out in May 2002 and hence a few things are out of date including SOAP spec and Apache implementation. Examples seem rather trivial and lack depth. Advanced SOAP programmers or those considering enterprise integration will be disappointed. Coverage on .NET interoperability is a far cry from even being introductory. I hope the next version of the book will adequately address real integration issues such as performance, transactions, and security.

   Ajith Kallambella
   [...]




3. With a lot of sample and figure, excellent for new guys on using Java on SOAP. Though printed in 2002 against SOAP 1.1, it's still very helpful.



4. 1. Good coverage of SOAP
   2. Uses GLUE (acquired by webMethods since acquired Software AG), which
   is no longer available. As a result, when it's time to test your
   Web Services, you are on your own.
   3. Author's web site is non-existent, so you can't email him to find
   errata/ work arounds.
   
   My suggestion, buy a dfferent book (or if you like O'Reilly as I do,
   buy it used. At least you won't pay as much). I am using
   another O' Reilly book for SOAP Programming with Java.



5. It's OK... it's nothing informative. I'd recommend buying some of the books that thoroughly cover SOAP and books that thoroughly cover Java + Web Services. This is nice and all but it just doesn't pack a meaningful punch.

No comments about Herb Schildt's Java Programming Cookbook.