5 comments about BEA WebLogic Server 8.1 Unleashed.

1. 1444 pages of bits and pieces of how to create and deploy on Web Logic 8.1. Absolutley no cohesive transition of how to create and deploy even a simple J2EE application. The book will explain piece parts very well such as the XML descriptors and each J2EE API. But if you want to try out web logic and create an application quick and easy, this book is definately not for the beginner....



2. This book covers it all !! The book seems geared towards developers
   who already have a working knowledge of J2EE, including those migrating
   from other Application Servers. I don't normally like books compiled from
   many different authors, but this one seems to pull it off with the many authors
   enriching the content with their different perspectives.

   I like the screen shots, and I find the different and varied examples very helpful.
   This is not a J2EE 'Design Pattern' book, but it definitely contains valuable in depth
   and applied technical content covering many different aspects of J2EE development with
   BEA WebLogic. The authors do an excellent job of passing on the lessons they
   have learned and their experience is represented in the advice they give.

   It would have been nice to have more consistent scenarios to 'glue' the different
   chapters together, but in its current form it is easier to pick specific chapters
   that apply to a specific problem domain without needing to read the entire book.

   I would happily recommend the book to other BEA developers, and if only I could
   find the equivalent for IBM WebSphere I would be a very happy J2EE camper :-)




3. I have been on 3 projects now using WebLogic 8.1 and have been struggling to find out the changes. This book is great. It tells me everything I need to know.

   I recommend this book more for a reference book rather then a tutorial or guide on learning WebLogic chapter by chapter.




4. first unleashed book i bought - and probably the last. i tend to prefer a-press, o'reilly or manning for you who read books and know quality from quantity. the unleashed book is almost a random collection of j2ee chapters with very little relation to weblogic of any version. shure those chapters do have some value in and by them self but i got the book to get up to speed on weblogic version 8.1. i know j2ee already so about 7o% was wasted on me. yes, there are some config weblogic sections and how to install(not great) but a from a-z on how to get going with the appserver it just does not deliver. maybe too many persons involved. it's usually a warning sign with all the names of contributors. but then again. I did look at other books on the subject and they all seemed to be alike. wait until o'reilly sets the benchmark...again



5. This book really covers a lot of detail. It is really good and amongst the most accurate books that I have read technically.

   The style however does not flow very well (probably because it has several authors) - but if you can get past that, it has tons of good content.

5 comments about JSP, Servlets, and MySQL.

1. This is the worst technical book I have ever had the misfortune to read. I was originally excited to purchase the book as the Table of Contents outlined topics I am interested in studying. However, the book is riddled with text and code errors. In fact, the author had the audacity to change the downloadable source code after the book was published. Therefore, you can't even get the code source for the examples in the book, and the new code comes with no instructions! In addition, the author does a poor job of explaining the concepts he is trying to teach. M&T Books should be ashamed for publishing this poorly edited text. I truly feel that I have been swindled by this company/author and would like a full refund. The book is so bad that I will avoid all M&T Books in the future.



2. I picked up this book because I had already decided that I was going to use JSP and MySQL together to create my web site. Quite frankly, I haven't learned anything from this book that wasn't done better in other books, which is a shame because this is an area that really deserves a more thorough treatment. In several areas he just fills several pages with code and hardly explains it at all, other than a few lines--so why bother showing the entire example? This is a clear case where better editorial review would have helped to focus the book on material that would have been more helpful to the reader.



3. This book has a very interesting title and the TOC look great too, but unfortunately the content is carelessly chosen/written. I don't want to repeat the error in the code listings. I just want to mention about design problems in this book.

   JSP has its born-with problem that it is hard to set boundary for Server Programmer and HTML Programmer. These 2 kinds of work need different skill set. That's why separation of Data and Presention is very important to JSP web site design.

   The author of this book carefully avoided to include much JSP code in HTML pages, but his design leads to another extreme: almost every control (forms, buttons, links) are generated by JSP code. This approach will create a nightmare for JSP programmers for changing the appearance of the web site.

   So besides coding error, this book has design issues. I really can't imagine who should be the audience...




4. The TOC sounded great, so I bought the book. I hate to reiterate what other reviewers have already said, but it's true: there are so many errors it's rediculous. It was painful to figure out why I wasn't understanding some of the material (for example, the SAME SQL statement produces two DIFFERENT result sets on page 208/209)when in fact it was just a very poorly edited book. The book's topics are perfect - now someone needs to go through it with a pitchfork to weed out all the errors. Not to mention that the example code you can download has been refactored (to put it nicely). It's an expensive lesson in wasted money and time and frustration, but from now on, I'll always check the reviews here before ordering any book.



5. I found this book very helpful. I knew nothing about JSP, servlets and mysql. My previous experience came from a standard university course in Java. The book took me through setting up tomcat, mysql,etc. It started me off using the technologies. The book is built around a core example. I didn't reproduce and test the code supplied but dipped in to take what I needed. Downloading the code from the website was confusing. Overall this book has been very helpful. I found the content concise and to the point. Thanks to the author.

1 comments about SCJP 100 Success Secrets: Success with The Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP) Exam, before and after passing.

1. I just received this book today and looked at a few pages. It took just that long to see that something is really wrong here. The editorial quality is the worst I've ever seen in a published volume, poorer than I would accept in an email to a co-worker. For example, on the first page of text computer-based training is abbreviated as "cbt," "SCJP CBT," "CBT SCJP," and "SCJP CT." The grammar is poor to the point that it's difficult to discern the meaning of single sentences: "Those who chose to do CBT on SCJP takes full charge of their learning as they learn on their own pacing." I guess that's good advice, but holy cow! I'm going to have to return this book.

No comments about Invitation to Computer Science: Java Version.

No comments about Introduction To Computer Science Using Java, Student Workbook.

5 comments about Core Java Data Objects (Core Series).

1. In the march towards higher levels of abstraction and more powerful coding approaches, Sun came up with Enterprise Java Beans several years ago. But despite one's best efforts, instead of focusing on writing business logic in a modular, fully encapsulated way, you often also have to deal with reading and writing to a persistent format; usually a relational database. The gritty details of the impedance mismathc between your [hopefully] object oriented approach and the latter might eat up too much of your time.

   Realising this, Sun devised Java Data Objects. The book describes their main promise, which is to hide away the details of persistence. The big gain is in increasing the potential developer audience, as compared with EJBs. And you have less need of expert knowledge of RDBs. Previously, that was often a de facto requirement. You can now focus on the business logic. The second gain is shown in the JDO code examples, which are often cleaner without the persistence details. Of course, any realistic business logic will have more complicated details than the simple examples in the book, but at least persistence can be pushed offline.

   Last year, Robin Roos wrote "Java Data Objects" [also by the same publisher]. At that time, JDO was just getting started. Now, Sun has moved it deeper into J2EE. There is a lot more support for transactions and JDBC. JDO is no longer a speculative fling.




2. A good presentation for both architects and programmers, about JDO. The author explains the issues with Object oriented programs and relational databases then goes to show how JDO attempts to solve this mismatch (otherwise know as object relational impedance mismatch) Note from this book you will find that JDO is a standard to be implemented by vendors so that developers need not know varying interfaces object relational mapping frame works. JDO also has its own query language, which is not as powerful as SQL especially if you have complex joins or aggregation (OLAP) so, don't drop your JDBC yet! Well written with little fluff. It's not a O'rilly style code code book, it has the write amount of theory and code mix



3. Java Data Objects (JDO) is an alternative to JDBC that allows you to treat rows from a database as Java objects. The simplicity of JDO removes many of the complications involved with developing JDBC applications. This book does a decent job of covering the JDO specification and explaining how to properly use JDO. The book starts with an introduction to JDO and shows some examples of how to write code with JDO. The section on the object lifecycle isn't clearly explained having too much concentration on lists and not enough on explanations. The following chapters do a decent job of explaining the pieces of JDO. In addition to the basics, the book covers using JDO in a J2EE environment with a look at Enterprise JavaBeans, security, and transactions. A later chapter shows a comparison of JDO and JDBC. The authors wrap up with some tips, take a look at what might be coming in the future, and show a case study.

   The authors do not look at any JDO implementations, which leaves their explanations in essence, hanging in mid-air. Although they show how to code in JDO they don't show what a programmer needs to do to hook their code in to a database. This means that without further reading, you can't run any of the examples supplied. Although the book is not bad and might be worth a read, it is not as clear or as well written as one might like.




4. Name of the book: Core Java Data Objects
   Authors: Sameer Tyagi, Keiron McCammon, Michael Vorburger, and Heiko Bobzin.
   Published: Sun Microsystems Inc.,
   Publishing Date: Winter 2004.
   City: Upper Saddle River, NJ

   5=Well done! This book will be a valuable teaching and reference tool.

   4=I would recommend this book to someone interested in its topic.

   5=A complete reference. I would not need any additional reference on this topic.

   Write a minimum of three paragraphs describing the different aspects of this book.

   This is an excellent book on Java data objects for people who have worked with databases for a long time. the authors have taken the time to explain the concepts of JDO and how it can be implemented with fairly simple examples that are more real world.

   the authors also explain about the security aspects in JDO that need to be considered while implementing a real world situation. they also explain the differences between JDO and JDBC for people who have worked with JDBC and ways to implement JDO.

   the authors towards the end of the book explains how to explain the implementation of JDO for J2EE and enterprise solutions. they also provide tricks and tips for effective jdo implementation. a real world case study is presented for people who want to implement this solution.

   I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning java data object.




5. Java Data Objects (JDO) is a persistence framework to save Java objects to a datastore. The example code shows you how to create, read, update, and delete a persistent object using the JDO API. The book goes through the JDP API, especially the five main interfaces needed. The metadata, an xml file, that is needed for JDO is make clear in one chapter and the various options in the JDO xml file are explained to show you how to store your type of objects. The explanation of first-class and second-class object could have been longer. It seems like a more important topic and the brief mention in the book.
   
   Part of the book shows you how to develop applications with JDO and the architecture scenarios where you should or should not use JDO. The third part of the book covers using JDO and J2EE application. The authors argue that JDO in most situations offers a better solution over EJB entity beans to store your objects or to use JDO and some direct JDBC. Practical examples showing how JDO can be applied to existing applications
   
   The authors also have a real world case study that provides best practices and tips for your projects. The only part missing from the book, are using JDO implementations, which makes the examples impossible to test without using an implementation from one on the JDO implementers. I would recommend this book for anyone trying to learn JDO, but more information would be needed to use an actual JDO implementation.

5 comments about The Java Tutorial: Object-Oriented Programming for the Internet (2nd Edition).

1. This is perhaps one of the most well written technical books I have come across in a long time. It helps to have OOP background, to understand the way java works. The book is not a tutorial in the sense that some would expect, but it explains the fundamentals and attributes of the language in a very clear way. I have had this book for several years now and still refer to it (as a programmer) every now and then to review the fundamentals of how some things really work, so in that sense it is still valuable, especially due to the technical details. If users want to learn how to implement specifics on awt etc..., then they should buy a book that focuses on that, but this book does accomplish the objective of introducing java very well. This has been the source and perhaps a reference referred to by many when first introducing people to java. Problem is, the book is now probably well out dated, and the reader is adviced to buy newer editions, but this is still a great reference book on the fundamentals and mechanics of the language. Bottom line, I have no regrets for purchasing this book.



2. This was my textbook for a introductory college class for Java, and I never refer to it that much. Not too many examples to take a look at. It is good for a reference when you are more knowledgeable about Java. But don't think this is a handholding sort of book for the neophyte in Java. I wish there were more example for applets in the book. Anybody wants to buy my copy? The college bookstore is not buying it back, and I wonder just why.



3. Not that its bad. It like most Sun books is very good, but the Third edition is out. Buy that to get the latest on learning JAVA(tm).



4. This book is officially blessed by Sun Microsystems, but don't let that fool you - it isn't the best place to start with Java. If you've never used Java before, look for the "Core Java" book. Don't start with this one. I teach Java courses, and we originally tried to use this book as a supplement to in-class work. It wasn't terrible, but we found that the "Core Java" book was much better received than this for first time students.

   This book was originally written for presentation on the Sun web site, where you can still find it. As a result, it's written in a format that is laced with links and cross references, which I found a little distracting in book form. It's still usable, though - and I'd rather have this much material in book form. You can't exactly curl up with a good laptop.

   After you've already got the sort of good foundation in Java that a book like "Core Java" provides, this book can be very helpful. You can use this book to fill in the gaps and solidify your understanding of the language. It covers a host of important individual fundamental concepts rather well, and speaks intelligentally to language features, syntax, applets, and more.




5. This book is not a tutorial; it is not even really introductory.
   It does have some good explanations though. i bought thisd book because I have been trying to learn Java for the past 9 months. It isn't that the language is hard its the way it is taught!
   
   I will rate this book 3 stars; 3 stars for some good explanation. But the rest of the book is dumb examples and demonstrations, you will have to look up stuff at the Java web site to find out what exactly the methods mean. Also this book assumes you already know some basic java or whatever.
   
   If you have read some other java books fine buy this book, if not, beware; this book is only demonstrations without proper explanations.
   
   The purpose of a Java book should be to get the person reading it to apply what they study and I have yet to read such a book.

4 comments about J2EE Open Source Toolkit : Building an Enterprise Platform with Open Source Tools (Java Open Source Library).

1. This book is not only good conceptually and instructionally, but it's also a great reference text. Aside from reading very well, the content presentation is straightforward and concise. Using this book the reader can quickly throw together everything needed for development of this nature. The book is worth it for the chapter on developer tools (chapter 4) alone. After sitting down and going through it once, I was finally able to get a complete development environment up and running under Linux. I had made a few attempts before but couldn't set up the environment correctly nor had any good choice for an IDE. Under Linux (my preferred development platform) I had always just used the command line compilation tools and text editors (like vi). Now the IDE is set up and I can test, debug, write, and deploy code easily and I'm considerably more productive.
   The book is incredibly useful for experienced programmers and indispensable for anyone trying out Java and J2EE (particularly if you don't have access commercial development environment or testing platform... as a grad student I rely heavily on open source for development in all languages). It also explains how open source solutions can enhance production environments as well. And I've not found another reference that had everything I needed all in one place. This text is thoroughly recommended to anyone with an interest in J2EE or Open Source.



2. I would definitely recommend this book to developers or enterprises that need to build applications with limited resources.

   Having been the commercial app server developer for years (using Weblogic, JRun and Websphere), I was unaware of the capabilities of todays opensource app server. The capabilites and performance of opensource app servers like JBoss are well illusted in this book.

   This book also introduces the reader to a variety of opensource API's. Most of these API's are supported by Jakarta or Sourceforge projects.

   As it's name suggests, if you need opensource knowledge, start with this toolkit.




3. This book is perfect for anyone wanting an introduction to the capabilities of Open Source software. It is EVEN BETTER to help convince management on using Open Source. It clearly shows how to quickly setup a free, fast and reliable enterprise platform for your development team without spending thousands of dollars!

   If you want to have a professional level enterprise platform for you or your development team this book is for you! Using the book and the Companion website you can use all of the most popular open-source tools to build a single, integrated platform.




4. I tried to make myself read this book, but it didn't say much. Mainly a list of open source projects for a given topic. For example, templating engines, then proceeds to explain each one. This goes on for the entire book. Most of this information is available on the web for free. I wouldn't recommend this book.

5 comments about Essential JMF - Java Media Framework.

1. This book has a fair amount of information and tips, but has way too much filler. It's loaded with cutesy little jokes and redundant information, that only serve to impede your getting at the good stuff. Giving the authors the benefit of the doubt, the wasted paper was probably induced by the publisher to get a more displayable spine on the bookshelf. The code example walk-throughs are very helpful though. But there's not enough description for how to set up all the necessary pieces to make the examples work, at least for windows.



2. Compare core Java media framework ( by author Linden DeCarmo), this book is much better!! It is orgainzed very well and also has something you can search from outside of JMF reference guide. The code is previous and professional!



3. If you want to learn how to develop applications using JMF don't but this book! If you want to learn how to use EJMF then buy this book. What is EJMF I hear you ask. EJMF is the Essential JMF Toolkit, which most of the examples in this book are based on. Most of what I wanted to learn about JMF is hidden away in EJMF and not explained very well. What a waste of money. Perhaps the authors should bring out another book, EJMF Explained.



4. It is good book for someone want learn the basics of JMF. But it doesn't cover some important topic like broadcasting and conferencing. This cover only javax.media. Not good for advanced users.



5. I'm about halfway through this book. After being mystefied for a while by the Player, Contoller, Clock, the various transition states, when calls are legal, syncStart, etc., I finally decided to read up on it. The good news is that the API and JMF architecture are explained thoroughly and in detail. The bad news is that JMF has been significanly enhanced since the book was published. I would recommend reading the JMF Programmer's guide from the JMF web site to get up to snuff on version 2.

   The point is that you can intelligently read the programmers guide, which assumes a lot of knowledge, if you've become grounded in the basics. There is no way you can read through this book and not have a very clear understanding of the underpinnings of JMF.

   The other thing I enjoy about this book is the programming examples. The authors clearly understanding the Java language and how it was intended to be used. I think this is important for guys like me out in the field who are self-taught. In particularly, the threading code is nicely done and provides good instruction in an area this book isn't necessarily intended for.

   The authors implement a framework for JMF in part 2. Studying how this framework is implemented gives a great "under-the-hood" look at JMF. I've gotten a chapter or two into that and plan to finish out studying Part 2 this week.

   I found out that the author's work for sun and at least one was part of the JMF development team. This makes sense, because the primary focus of the book is the JMF API. I feel much more competent looking through the JMF docs now, in part because of the familiarity with the JMF API developed from this book.

3 comments about Java and the Java Virtual Machine: Definition, Verification, Validation.

1. this book is one of a kind, among all the java books on the market. it breaks the java language into 5 (progressive) layers, and gives the abstract syntax, static semantic (type constraints), dynamic semantic (interpretation), and complitation rules of each layer. This approach is effective, mathematically rigorous, and believe or not, fun to read!

   as most of the PL books with formal flavor, the notations take some time to get use to. but the rewarding is worth the effort: you get a very clear picture of language itself. the examples are quite interesting, and the software on the CD does a superb job animating the intrepretation of java programs.

   all in all, a very good (academic) book, perfect for computer scientists or CS major graduate student interested in PL, but probably not for everyday programmers.




2. It just shows an implementation for an old Java specification (I think JDK1 or JDK1.1) in a weird language called ASM. This ASM is simply a glorified programming language, even not one of the most advanced: haskell, for instance, is much more clearer. You /could/ think about it as a model for java but then it would be useless because of its intricacies and its gigantic size.



3. This is by far the most sophisticated software book since the Cold War. Without the Soviets to keep western engineers and scientists on their toes, IT is a alot of marketing buzzwords.
   
   These are real scientists...a breath a fresh air.