Enterprise Java Programming with IBM Websphere by K Brown (Editor), et al (Addison)

[Johannes de Jong]

In its 500 pages, this book contains a focused and thorough discussion of enterprise Java development using IBM Websphere and VisualAge. The accompanying CDs contain the timesheet application case study used to develop and illustrate the topics discussed, and evaluation versions of the tools and the DB2 database.
The first few chapters on J2EE architecture are tough going with lots of heavyweight terminology. Fortunately, things clear up as the book moves on to servlets, JSPs, and the case study. The entire second half of the book is dedicated to EJBs. Each of these areas is first introduced at a fairly elementary level, and then covered by a hands-on demonstration of development using WebSphere and VisualAge, working code examples from the case study, and chapters on design considerations and advanced topics.
The way an understanding of the technology, its design issues, and the IBM toolset is developed in parallel is definitely the highlight of the book. It is a refreshing change from volumes that leave you with some understanding of a sprawling pile of technologies but only a vague notion how to apply them. On the flip side, the writing style is fairly dry, JSP 1.1 and tag libraries (supported since v3.5.2) get a perfunctory discussion, and Web services none at all. The authors could also have focused a bit less on EJBs and fleshed out the topic of web-tier-only applications, as these are often more efficient, easier to develop, and perfectly adequate.
(Peter den Haan - Bartender, September 2001)
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[Bala Raj]

Hi,
What version of WAS and VAJ is convered in this book???
Thanx,
Bala.

[Kyle Brown]

The book covers WebSphere 3.5.3 and VisualAge 3.5.3.
Kyle Brown
------------------
Kyle Brown,
Author of Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere

[Book Review Team]

<pre>Author/s : Kyle Brown, Gary Craig, Greg Hester, Russell Stinehour, W. David Pitt,
Mark Weitzel, Jim Amsden, Peter M. Jakab, Daniel Berg
Publisher : Addison-Wesley
Category : J2EE
Review by : Lasse Koskela
Rating : 8 horseshoes</pre>
Enterprise Java Programming with IBM WebSphere is a solid overview of J2EE technologies and a great tutorial for using IBM's top-notch IDE for developing J2EE applications.
The authors (all 9 of them) go through the whole J2EE architecture from JavaServer Pages to Enterprise JavaBeans to Web Services one element at a time, including "bonuses" here and there, such as testing certain types of J2EE components, the Apache Struts framework, building a presentation layer using XML and XSLT, and mapping objects to data sources.
Each chapter includes a brief introduction to the technology, starting from the basics, and proceeds through the development steps in WSAD using lots of nice screenshots (which are mandatory for such a topic) and plenty of example code. Although some of the plain text is simply describing the wizards and dialogs of WSAD, the why's are always explained.
My biggest glitch with this book was in fact how the code snippets are rendered. Besides the mandatory typos and occasional weird wordings, the code snippets were often badly formatted and double-spaced which made them unnecessarily difficult to read at times.
The book comes with a 3 CD set of software, including trial versions of WebSphere Studio Application Developer, DB2 Personal Edition, WebSphere Application Server, and all of the book's source code. I had some trouble installing the software but that was most probably because I tried to customize the installations quite a bit
Over 800 pages of "let's walk this through together" type of tutorial is an admirable goal and the authors have done a good job making it a pleasant experience. The book has a lot of content and a lot of it is some of the finest text I've read about J2EE best practices. As one could expect, the trade-off is that none of the topics/technologies are really covered in complete detail. All things considered, I'd say this is a great first or second book about J2EE if you're going to use WebSphere Studio. I really can't say whether it should be the first or second, but I know it makes a great companion for a more in-depth technical reference.


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[ February 20, 2004: Message edited by: Book Review Team ]

[Kyle Brown]

Since it's not covered in the review, I should probably state that this edition of the book covers WAS 5.0 and 5.02 and WSAD 5.02 and 5.1. Note that besides adding JDK 1.4, WAS 5.1 and WSAD 5.1.1 have very few changes from these earlier versions, so this version covers them effectively as well.
Kyle

[Gus Johnson]

I have over 5 years of Java/J2EE programming experience. I recently bought this book with the hope of learning Websphere Development. I installed the accompanying trial software, but I'm have problem running it. "Websphere Developer 5.0 cannot load because it cannot find the license."

Can anyone help please.



Thanks

[Massimo Bertuzzi]

Hi everybody,
I had the same problem installing the software on two different machines (both windows xp professional SP2):

I installed the software from the 3 CDs "attached" to the book,
precisely following the instructions at the end of the book
on appendix A, but when I launched the application (if you follow the instructions you need to start the application WSAD to perform an update from the inet) i get the error message
"the license cannot be found - WebSphere Studio Application Developer 5.0.1 will not be started."

This is a big problem, i choose this book also for the CDs!

Every suggestion will be appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Massimo