Designing Enterprise Applications with the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition
by Nicholas Kassem,
Enterprise Team
Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0-201-70277-0
J2EE Technology in Practice
Rick Cattell, Jim Inscore, Enterprise Partners
Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0-201-74622-0
This month I review two books, both of which are valuable sources for developers and architects building enterprise applications using J2EE technologies.
If you're familiar with the J2EE Blueprints from Sun, Designing Enterprise Applications with the Java2 Platform, Enterprise Edition is the official "Java Series" book from Addison-Wesley on them. It's a part of the Java Series Enterprise books from Sun. J2EE Blueprints are still available for a free download from Sun's Java site, but if you like to have the professionally bound book, this is it.
J2EE Blue prints were discussed in previous issues of JDJ. They tie the components of a complex platform with several aspects of software application development into one brief overview. This book is that excellent overview of the J2EE platform. I didn't think it feasible to cover all major aspects of Enterprise Java in 341 pages, but the authors have done a great job in doing just that.
This is a good book for architects and designers. It introduces all the major components of J2EE in a nutshell. Readers may be familiar with some of the information, but I haven't seen another source where it has been covered in such a concise fashion. It introduces the building blocks of J2EE, applicability of individual components in different scenarios, and tiered application development. The book is written by a team of authors from Sun, who have contributed to the development or documentation of the J2EE framework.
The book can be segmented into four basic sections, which may apply to different audiences, or make for different reading sessions. My recommendation is for the reader to go through the whole book. It is not voluminous and does not delve into API details. As mentioned before, it provides an overview and guidelines, not practical application development examples.
Chapters 1 and 2 consist of an introduction to J2EE technologies. The components of J2EE are described, a brief overview of the APIs is given, and the types of services offered by J2EE are described. The discussion on the types of J2EE containers was lucid.
The second part of the book - Chapters 3 to 6 - discusses the basic tiers of applications that can be built on a J2EE base. I found this section particularly interesting. The authors present the business scenarios in which J2EE can be applied. What I liked most was that different types of applications are addressed, but there is no attempt to sell a one-shoe-fits-all concept. The authors make it clear that all aspects of J2EE do not apply to all applications. These chapters help the reader decide what to apply and when.
The next section Chapters 7-9 deals with specific issues that designers and architects encounter when building enterprise applications. The issues related to deploying EJBs, transactions, and security are covered in brief. The last section discusses the Pet Store application - an example application that illustrates the design of a commerce application using the components of J2EE.
