Building Java Enterprise Systems with J2EE by Paul Perrone, Venkata S.R.K.R. Chaganti

In a perfect world, on the day you started working with J2EE you would be handed a book that contained everything you needed to know about the subject. This is very close to being that book. This book is for experienced Java developers who are working with Java enterprise technologies. That does not mean servlets and JSPs, although those topics are covered. This book covers much more than just the basics of J2EE. Naming services, directory services, messaging services, transaction services, DCOM, RMI, CORBA, XML are all covered in some depth. You might think that a book covering so much would need to cover each topic only briefly. In this case, you would be wrong. CORBA has more that 150 pages, JDBC has 120 pages, RMI has 100 pages, XML has 60 pages and so on. Other topics which are often skimmed over in other books (security, cryptography, network communications) are given good coverage here. A case study is covered throughout the book showing how each technology could be used in a single application. The end result is a book that is huge with over 1400 pages. However, the book does have some weaknesses. It is light on the most popular topics of servlets and JSPs. It is also light on helping the developer to determine when to use one technology instead of another.
If you are looking for a comprehensive guide to J2EE beyond servlets and JSPs, then this book may be the resource you need.
(Thomas Paul - Bartender, July 2001)
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