Books for Architects

[Maciek Stopczyk]

Hello,
I have a short question. What books would you advise for people that tend to be a Java Architects? I'm NOT asking about books that strictly help you to prepare for SCEA (listed in FAQ).

Regards
ms
[ November 13, 2007: Message edited by: Maciek Stopczyk ]

[Patrick Williams]

I own this book:

The J2EE Architect's Handbook
Derek C. Ashmore

http://www.amazon.com/J2EE-Architects-Handbook-Derek-Ashmore/dp/0972954899/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194970137&sr=1-1

I've only had a chance to browse through this, but it looks pretty good and has received some good reviews on Amazon.

[Daniel Amadei]

All the books from Martin Fowler are a *MUST HAVE*!

[ravindra janapreddy]

This book has recieved bad reviews on serverside.com. A PDF copy is freely available on the web. I read some pages from this book and it clearly lives up to its reputation. There is no one book available in the market that can be called an Architect book for J2EE Developers. I have been looking for such book so if you have any recommendations do let me know.

Thanks
Ravi

[peter cooke]

I doubt there is one book that will enable you to be an architect (J2EE or othewise).

There are a number of books very important to passing the SCEA.

So are you talking about passing the SCEA or being an architect?

If you are talking about passing the SCEA. You need to know gang of 4 patterns, Core J2EE patterns, UML, the high level of EJB 2, EJB 3, JPA, java server faces, servlet, jsp, webservices, HTML. the FAQ of this section lists many good books. Read them all, plus the specification.

If you are talking about being an architect and keeping your job. All of the above, plus keeping up on the direction of java api's, plus experience, plus project management, plus have great interpersonal skills.

[Maciek Stopczyk]

Thank you guys. I know that there is no one book that will do the job (and I'm not looking for such). I asked about your favorite books that you would advise.

There are several books (not strictly connected with SCEA) that are often cited in this forum and are truly a must (UML Distilled, Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans, Core J2EE patterns to name a few). But what would you advice for other subjects?
Let's say I want to buy a book about JSF and JPA. On Amazon there are numbers of them. Very often they have contradictory reviews. And I believe that it is better to ask professionals for their advice than buy disappointing book with beautiful cover
[ November 23, 2007: Message edited by: Maciek Stopczyk ]

[Adam Czysciak]

Czesc Maciek ;-)

I suppose you are Pole too, good to see someone! Some words from me. Generally, I do not read many books - architecture for me is something you need to learn on your own during your career, it's not the thing you can read and just know... That's why I tried not to prepare for part 1 too much.

However, there are 2 books worth mentioning on patterns/JPA.
1) for design patterns - Core J2EE patters
2) for JPA - Java Persistence with Hibernate

I cannot tell you anything about JSF, as I simply do almost not know it at all...

[Flavio Oliva]

take a look at this website.

http://www.corej2eepatterns.com

maybe it will help you on what you need.

best regards!

Flavio Oliva

[Deron McAndrew]

Here's my list of favourite architecture oriented books and a couple of development oriented titles in no particular order:

1) Design Patterns (Gamma, et al)
2) Core J2EE Patterns (Alur, Malks, Crupi)
3) UML Distilled by Fowler
4) Refactoring, again, by Fowler
5) Java Persistence with Hibernate
6) Definitive XML Schema (Walmsley)
7) The EJB 3.0 and Java Persistence specifications
8) Spring in Action
9) Mastering EJB (available for free online)
10) Head First Servlets and JSP (a bit cutesy, but really does cover the essentials well)
11) And finally from the Heresy Collection: J2EE Development without EJB by Johnson.

Seems like an odd list for someone who spends his whole day working on web services, but to be honest, I've never found a really good book on web services. They all seem to concentrate on simple cases that never actually occur in the real world of B2B services. As far as I can tell we're still pretty much on our own to figure out which books are talking nonsense, which are totally outdated and which ones actually contain a few valuable chapters (the O'Reilly book "Java Web Services" still largely holds up in the SOAP, WSDL, UDDI sections but when reading it you'll have to keep in mind that you'll likely be using much more up-to-date, higher level APIs).

I'll also mention one more book that I don't refer to as often as the others, but that has proven valuable to me. "Professional Java Security" from Wrox Press contains a lot of information on the basics of security. It's a bit dated and, I believe it's out of print now, but if you can get your hands on a copy it's still worth reading.

That's it. If you master all of the information in those books... you'll make hundreds of dollars!

[Raj Mishra]

If you master all of the information in those books... you'll make hundreds of dollars! [/QB]

Really? I did not know that

Since there are so many books and most often you will need to only review specific sections, I have stopped buying books. I have a membership with Safari. I had a 'complete' membership during the 1 month preparation for the SCEA exam and before / after I use the basic plan. It actually works out. Would like to hear if anybody else use this strategy...