As many Java developers and IS managers already know, Sun’s powerful Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) technology offers an attractive option for developing server-side components. A suitable read for both managers and Java programmers, Enterprise JavaBeans provides a surprisingly clear and engaging introduction to designing and programming with EJBs.

The tour of the EJB component model presented here centers on several beans created and tested for a travel reservation system in a fictitious cruise ship company. The samples are just right in scale, large enough to test out key concepts in design and deployment, but small enough to be comprehensible, even to those who are not Java experts. The author pays close attention to the real-world issues of deployment with EJBs (as well as the differences among the vendor application servers that run them).

While there are enough details in Java syntax for designing both entity and session beans for the developer, sections on design here will please those who manage projects without delving much into code. Later, the author shows various ways to design entity and session beans. (For instance, entity beans can allow their bean containers to handle the details of connecting to a database, or they can do it themselves. This book demonstrates both approaches.) When it comes to session beans (which "wire" together entity beans to do real work), the author’s introduction to managing state and transactions is also a standout. Tips for performance and reusability close out the book.

In all, Enterprise JavaBeans provides an engaging tour of one of the most promising component technologies. It’s technically astute, but thoroughly approachable too, and can serve the needs of any manager or Java developer considering EJBs for future projects. –Richard Dragan

Topics covered : Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) basics, distributed architectures, Component Transaction Monitors (CTMs), bean-containers, home and remote bean interfaces, resource management, configuring EJB servers, entity beans, JNDI, container-managed and bean-managed persistence, session beans, stateless and stateful beans, transactions, design and performance hints.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great EJB3 Book! You will be greatly pleased with your purchase.
This is a great introduction to EJBs in general, and now EJB3. (the JSR 220 standard) Just like EJBs are now easier to develop with version 3, so is it easy to read and study this book. I hold O’Reilly in a high regard, (doesn’t mean I’m a fan boy though, they do have their share of bad apples) and their high standards show in the quality of writing in this book. You will be happy with your purchase.

5 Stars Excellent book on EJB 3.0 and JPA 1.0, even for a beginner
I found this book very helpful getting me up to date with the latest version of EJB. I had used EJB 2.1 before, but this book is good even for complete beginners. The first couple hundred pages are about the new Java Persistence Architecture. The last couple hundred pages are on using EJB 3.0 in JBoss AS. The middle of the book covers the rest of EJB 3.0. I still reference this book from time to time when working with JPA and complex relationships. I highly recommend this book.

2 Stars Good but outdated
To be brief, this is a great book, but you will almost certainly want the newest edition of it.

3 Stars Is Good but Quality down in the code
I recommend this book. The book cover almost topics in EJB 3.0 and you can depend it for preparing the SCBCD 5. The author explain and describe the topics in easy way.

The problem of this book have more error in code I escalation it for author. cause the book have his name not auditor name.

I will give this book three stars for losing the quality.

4 Stars Great Introduction
I have been building J2EE based applications for about five years now and this book has given me exactly what I needed to move to the new version of the specification. I’m using it as a study guide for the Sun Certified Business Component Developer certification exam.

Fun to read with great working examples included with the Jboss Workbook at the end.

Buy/More Info

Groundbreaking fundamentals — first approach enables readers to understand the basics before being introduced to more challenging topics. Liang offers one of the broadest ranges of carefully chosen examples, reinforcing key concepts with objectives lists, introduction and chapter overviews, easy-to-follow examples, chapter summaries, review questions, programming exercises, and interactive self-test. Now uses standard classes only. Offers new chapters on data structures, JSF for visual Web development, and Web services; includes a new standalone chapter on the full GUI library. Uses UML diagrams in every example starting chapter 8. Includes additional notes with diagrams. Comprehensive coverage of Java and programming make this a useful reference for IT professionals.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars maybe its the learning style
I saw Dream a Little’s review and came to the conclusion it may be peoples learning style that determines if they like this book. I am new at programming and the book used in the college course I took was Deittel’s 7th ed. Java How to Program. This book left me with a lot of unanswered questions that other books I had checked out from the library could not answer. I was about to give up when I stumbled upon this book and was amazed and wishing I had found it sooner in the semester.

I found it explained a lot of the basics very clearly. It also had a lot more understandable examples given. Even though Deittel’s book is over 1500+ pages it came nowhere near as good as the examples I found in Liang’s approx 700 pages.

I was a bit spooked at the price when I bought it, wondering if I was going to regret it. But after using the book I concluded this maybe one of those instances where you get what you pay for.

Liang uses a lot of diagrams to show how the pieces fit together as well as simple to understand explanations.

If you are already a programmer in Java then I doubt this is worth the price, but for the beginner/novice who likes to see how the pieces fit together and wishes to understand why things go in the order they do, then this maybe the book for you.

If I later move to another language, I will be looking to see if this author has anything written in that category as well.

5 Stars The best programming book ever .
I bought this book motivated by the good reviews that i saw on amazon. I was very pleased not only with the wealth of information(Fundamentals, OOP, MVC, JDBC, JSP/Servlets, JavaBeans, Swing/Advanced Swing, Collections etc ), but also from the presantation which is consice and very easy to follow. This was the text that did it for me. I struggled with other texts and the presentation was always missing something to say the least. Thanks to this book i was able to move to the world of J2EE and my biggest problem was dealing with application servers than with the java language itself.

My current position demands some C# .Net development and once again i am struggling with horrible incomplete Books that neglect to provide the hole code assuming previous knowledge.

I thought that may be Liang has written something about C# (Unfortunatelly not), but i was sad to see that there is

some critism which i consider unfair -not so much for the author but -for those who are trying to learn java.

I dont Know how to strech this more but listen: There is no better intro

book in programming. May be an experienced teacher has objections about the right positioning of the chapters but believe it or not after reading the first 7 chapters you are able to skip to any chapter you want(At the beginning of the book there is a flow chart that helps you guide your study according to your needs). Also dont forget that it is a programming book which tries to teach tough theoritical ideas in a practical way and dont fool yourself that there is a

way for doing this without your ability to understand.

Finally i saw that someone suggests a well-Known book instead of Liangs. I already own that book and its really confusing . A ton of information mixing together without making a specific point. If you dont beleive me just check the review for the book.

2 Stars Dry and Heavy
This book has an extremely dry writing style and often does not explain things well to a beginner. Additionally, the book is very “fat” and heavy especially when carrying it around or to class.

4 Stars Good book, very informative
Got this book for an object oriented programming class. I have had very little programming experience, but the book has helped greatly in both learning Java and learning some of the fundamentals of coding.

1 Star I’m shocked at the high reviews for this book
I highly recommend the Deitel Java: How to Program book instead.

Liang over and over again introduces terms that he has never defined. He does not tell you why code is the way it is. He is terse, and there is just no true explanation.

The layout of the text is also in black and green, and that’s it. His code is hard to follow compared to the Deitel book.

I’m truly shocked at how people seem to like this book. It’s unintelligible in my view. I dread reading it and actually read the Deitel book instead.

Buy/More Info

The Deitels’ groundbreaking How to Program series offers unparalleled breadth and depth of object-oriented programming concepts and intermediate-level topics for further study. The Seventh Edition has been extensively fine-tuned and is completely up-to-date with Sun Microsystems, Inc.’s latest Java release — Java Standard Edition 6 (“Mustang”) and several Java Enterprise Edition 5 topics. Contains an extensive OOD/UML 2 case study on developing an automated teller machine. Takes a new tools-based approach to Web application development that uses Netbeans 5.5 and Java Studio Creator 2 to create and consume Web Services. Features new AJAX-enabled, Web applications built with JavaServer Faces (JSF), Java Studio Creator 2 and the Java Blueprints AJAX Components. Includes new topics throughout, such as JDBC 4, SwingWorker for multithreaded GUIs, GroupLayout, Java Desktop Integration Components (JDIC), and much more. A valuable reference for programmers and anyone interested in learning the Java programming language.

* MySQL(R) 5.0 Community Server / v5.0.27
* MySQL(R) Connector/J Version 5.0.4
* Sun(R) Java(TM) Studio Creator 2 Update 1
* NetBeans(TM) IDE Version 5.5 with Java EE Application Server 9.0 U1 Bundle

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Excellent text to learn the challenging concepts of Java!
I purchased this text for my class on Java Programming. I never had experience with any Object Oriented Programming (OOP) languages such as C++, C# and Java before. I love the way that this text introduces the concepts “Object” and “UML” and tries to familiarize you with complex terminology and structure of Java. Sometimes you feel confused with terms such as method, class, argument, identifier adn etc., but the way that this text presents and gives the examples for each of them is excellent. Case Study examples are complete with thorough explanations and are “oriented to objects”.

No doubt that I am confident in giving 5 stars to this text. However, I must mention couple cons I encountered in the text and I hope Authors will take’m into consideration in future editions:

1) “Error Prevention”, “Good Programming Practice” and other tips occur in the middle of the text quite frequently and therefore are sometimes a bit distracting when you read the text. However, sometimes they do contain very important concepts and definitions for terminologies which are very pricy to ignore or skip (sometimes I did so in order to focus on the main text:-( ). Therefore I would urge the authors to incorporate those tips into the text so that readers would neither skip those concepts nor be distracted by frequent occurance of the tips.

2) I personally had difficulty in installing the JDK and JRE’s latest versions and the directions in the text are not user friendly.

3) The “Examples” folder in CD does not have Appendix M.

Nonehteless, these cons do not affect the overall quality of the text, and again, it is highly recommended to own one!

2 Stars Boring and trite
I bought this book for a sophomore computer science class on OO and web-design. This was one of the worst textbooks I’ve come across. The examples are old. (Who really wants another Employee class example?). The text is full of ‘helpful’ facts that are often obscure and distracting. This book never really explained the most important topics of OO (such as polymorphism) in a way that I understood.

Computer Science textbooks should not be sold based on weight but on content. Do yourself a favor and purchase Head First Java.

5 Stars Great Introductory Book
Used this book for a hybrid Introduction to Java Program Course. Didn’t need to e-mail the professor at all for help on assignments or online tests. I recommend either jGrasp or Netbeans for your compiler. Used both and they were both extremely helpful.

5 Stars The best book to start programming with Java
There is no other book which is so complete and student oriented like this. It is worth any penny of its price. It covers programming from the basics and it takes you to an intermediate level of knowledge. The presentation of the ULM stuff in combination with OOD/OOP is super.

If you want to learn Java from scratch this is the book!

5 Stars Great Java book
I purchased this book after I had taken a Java class that used the Head First Java book as a textbook. I could not stand trying to use that book, so I purchased the Deitel book. It is a great book to learn java and to use as a reference. I have continued to use this book in every java class I have had and even purchased another Deitel book (C#) because they are so informative and easy to use.

Buy/More Info

Persistence-the ability of data to outlive an instance of a program-is central to modern applications. Hibernate, the most popular Java persistence tool, provides automatic and transparent object/relational mapping making it a snap to work with SQL databases in Java applications. Hibernate applications are cheaper, more portable, and more resilient to change. Because it conforms to the new EJB 3.0 and Java Persistence 1.0 standard, Hibernate allows the developer to seamlessly create efficient, scalable Java EE applications.

Java Persistence with Hibernate explores Hibernate by developing an application that ties together hundreds of individual examples. You’ll immediately dig into the rich programming model of Hibernate 3.2 and Java Persistence, working through queries, fetching strategies, caching, transactions, conversations, and more. You’ll also appreciate the well-illustrated discussion of best practices in database design, object/relational mapping, and optimization techniques.

In this revised edition of the bestselling Hibernate in Action, authors Christian Bauer and Gavin King-the founder of the Hibernate project-cover Hibernate 3.2 in detail along with the EJB 3.0 and Java Persistence standard.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Best Resource
I have finally found a great resource on persistence. This book allows you find enough detail quickly to get going and enough in-depth knowledge and understanding to keep you coming back. A must own.

5 Stars Great book for hibernate
This is the the BEST book for hibernate. better than hibernate in action and other books.

Gavin King Rocks.

2 Stars A boring book
This is a boring book and hard to understand. If you want to learn Hibernate, don’t buy it.

5 Stars AWESOME BOOK
Got this book when I started working with hibernate at work. This book and its sample code saved me weeks of effort.

Hibernate is an OK framework, but a steep learning curve. This book will help you significantly reduce that learning curve.

5 Stars A Massive Book for a Magnificent Framework
Some of the reviews for this book are a little harsh.

This is the most complete book on Hibernate on the market. It covers everything, and I mean everything. From mapping to annotations, to whatever, it’s in here.

The book is written by the makers of Hibernate, and you can find an answer to pretty much every question you’ll ever have explained in extreme detail, and in a very, very technical way.

The book uses the Caveat Emptor application as a reference. You keep going back to that example, which you can download from the hibernate site. It is a very complete and intricately developed application that is a reference for how to develop enterprise ready applications that could be deployed to pretty much any mission critical environment.

This book is amazing. Some reviewers have tried to use this as a Dummies book or How To book and have been frustrated, and have given this book poor reviews. That’s not fair. Imagine trying to learn to swing a baseball (or cricket) bat by taking pitches from a major league pitcher. You wouldn’t learn a thing, as every pitch zoomed by you at 100mph. This book is like the big league pitcher, helping you develop and design applications that are ready for the big leagues. When you understand that, you can understand why people who are new to the technology, and looking for very simple and straight forward examples, can get frustrated with this book and give it 1 or 2 stars. Really, those reviews are not fair.

If you are new to hibernate, you should start of with something a like Hibernate Made Easy: Simplified Data Persistence with Hibernate and JPA (Java Persistence API) Annotations. If you are using mapping files, then Hibernate: A Developer’s Notebook is the other book you should get.

Overall, this is a five star book written by the people that know Hibernate the most. We’re very luck to have a book like this to help guide us through the really, really, really tough stuff.

Buy/More Info

With more than 700,000 copies sold to date, “Java in a Nutshell” from O’Reilly is clearly the favorite resource amongst the legion of developers and programmers using Java technology. And now, with the release of the 5.0 version of Java, O’Reilly has given the book that defined the “in a Nutshell” category another impressive tune-up.

In this latest revision, readers will find “Java in a Nutshell,” 5th Edition, does more than just cover the extensive changes implicit in 5.0, the newest version of Java. It’s undergone a complete makeover–in scope, size, and type of coverage–in order to more closely meet the needs of the modern Java programmer.

To wit, “Java in a Nutshell,” 5th Edition now places less emphasis on coming to Java from C and C++, and adds more discussion on tools and frameworks. It also offers new code examples to illustrate the working of APIs, and, of course, extensive coverage of Java 5.0. But faithful readers take comfort: it still hasn’t lost any of its core elements that made it such a classic to begin with.

This handy reference gets right to the heart of the program with an accelerated introduction to the Java programming language and its key APIs–ideal for developers wishing to start writing code right away. And, as was the case in previous editions, Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition is once again chock-full of poignant tips, techniques, examples, and practical advice. For as long as Java has existed, “Java in a Nutshell” has helped developers maximize the capabilities of the program’s newest versions. And this latest edition is no different.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Java in a bombshell
The book is by far the most comprehensive, plain english manual for java that exists. Great book, but anyone who see’s it laughs at the title. I think it must be an intentional joke. With 1225 pages and weighing in at a hefty 1.5kg (3.3lb) it’s by no means a nutshell. It’s more like a bombshell. If it were ever to be divided into 3 books, I would buy it again, just so that using it wouldn’t be so cumbersome.

2 Stars in a nutshell - meh
I am a programmer, and in a programming language book, I expect to find syntactical diagrams of the language. Anyone can read those, we should not have to glean the diagram from the wordy explanation. It’s fine to have all the verbiage, but head each section with the syntax diagram.

Also, this book goes into lengthy explanations of what object oriented programming is NOT, as on page 104. This is a very bad practice in teaching. Only teach what is correct, not what some novice might ignorantly think. I have gotten better fundamentals in Java free on the w3c site.

5 Stars Excellent reference, but could lose the last 2/3 of the book
I very much like this as a reference, but at this point I feel like most of the back 2/3 of the book is unnecessary bulk. The front portion, however, is excellent.

3 Stars this Nutshell has become a Bomb Shelter
I used to like this Nutshell book, but it seems to have grown a little too big for its bridges. Maybe it’s not O’Reily’s fault. Maybe it has more to do with Java growing so much. But earlier versions were quick and to the point. This is now overly verbose.

This is no longer a sleek Nutshell. Its a back-breaking bomb shelter with 10ft thick walls.

4 Stars Good reference book , but a little heavy
This is a great book for those Java programmers who want a rapid reference. The only drawback of this book is its weigth: the large part of the book is made of a Java reference (very similar to the official JavaDoc) that in my opinion is not so helpful, as if I need the documentation for a specific class I can browse the official documentation online.

Anyway, the first part of the book is well written and gives many examples that can help both new and experienced programmers to understand the main features of Java 5.

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Of all the Ajax-specific frameworks that have popped up in recent years, one clearly stands out as the industrial strength solution. Dojo is not just another JavaScript toolkit — it’s the JavaScript toolkit — and Dojo: The Definitive Guide demonstrates how to tame Dojo’s extensive library of utilities so that you can build rich and responsive web applications like never before. Dojo founder Alex Russell gives a foreword that explains the “why” of Dojo and of this book. Dojo provides an end-to-end solution for development in the browser, including everything from the core JavaScript library and turnkey widgets to build tools and a testing framework. Its vibrant open source community keeps adding to Dojo’s arsenal, and this book provides an ideal companion to Dojo’s official documentation. Dojo: the Definitive Guide gives you the most thorough overview of this toolkit available, showing you everything from how to create complex layouts and form controls closely resembling those found in the most advanced desktop applications with stock widgets, to advanced JavaScript idioms to AJAX and advanced communication transports. With this definitive reference you get: A concise introduction to Dojo that covers everything through the version 1.1 release Well-explained examples, with scores of tested code samples, that let you see Dojo in action A comprehensive reference to Dojo’s standard JavaScript library (including fundamental utilities in Base, Dojo’s tiny but powerful kernel) that you’ll wonder how you ever lived without An extensive look at additional Core features, such as animations, drag-and-drop, back-button handling, animations like wipe and slide, and more Exhaustive coverage ofout-of-the-box Dijits (Dojo widgets) as well as definitive coverage on how to create your own, either from scratch or building on existing ones An itemized inventory of DojoX subprojects, the build tools, and the DOH, Dojo’s unit-testing framework that you can use with Dojo — or anywhere else If you’re a DHTML-toting web developer, you need to read this book — whether you’re a one-person operation or part of an organization employing scores of developers. Dojo packs the standard JavaScript library you’ve always wanted, and Dojo: The Definitive Guide helps you transform your ideas into working applications quickly by leveraging design concepts you already know.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars NOT for non-programmers
This book is incredibly frustrating. The introduction promises the book will address anyone “who is able to construct a very simple web page and apply a dab of JavaScript and CSS…” What a joke. I’m a web designer who prototypes in HTML, CSS, and slightly complex Javascript. But this book continually mystifies me. Instead of giving clear, plain-English, step-by-step explanations, it jumps headlong into complex code samples and advanced programming terms, leaving me completely in the dust.

And don’t get me started on the typos and errors. The funniest is that in the illustration figures, different items shown top and bottom are referred to in the captions as “right” and “left.” I’ve already stumbled on numerous typos in the code samples. I guess that’s kind of standard for computer books these days, but I expect a little better from O’Reilly.

Sigh. Guess I’ll have to look elsewhere for help learning Dojo.

5 Stars The Dojo Mojo
Matthew Russell has captured what makes Dojo the “magic sauce” of the Ajax world. As he indicates in the book’s dedication, Dojo can be your friend in combating browser idiosyncrasies. Since Russell has been an active participant in the Dojo development community for a long time, he’s in an excellent position to write from an expert’s viewpoint. Another Amazon reviewer has covered the book’s contents thoroughly. “Dojo: The Definitive Guide” is very well-organized and covers lots of ground. I appreciate the fact that the author doesn’t simply rehash online documentation; instead he provides real insight and coherent explanations. Like most O’Reilly books, the table of contents and index are invaluable in rapidly honing in on a particular subtopic.

To get the most out of this book, you do need to have some web development background (JavaScript, CSS, HTML), but then who else would be purchasing this book? While the book might have benefited from a discussion of Dojo use with YUI, Google Gear, or other toolkits, the author points out this is out of scope. I imagine this saved more than a few trees. (Check out the ongoing efforts of the OpenAjax Alliance if you need to combine multiple frameworks.) I would have preferred access to the code examples packaged in a convenient zip file; perhaps the author will add that to his O’Reilly catalog page (URL given in the preface or just search for “Dojo” at oreilly.com). However, these points do not detract from the thoroughness in which Russell has covered a difficult and rapidly changing topic.

This book is certainly worthy of the fine O’Reilly imprint. The fact that it is edited by the always discerning Simon St. Laurent is definitely a plus. If you are a web developer who needs cross-browser support, you need this book in your library.

5 Stars Definitely THE definitive guide on Dojo!
Dojo has been a staple in the all-inclusive JavaScript toolkit world for a while now, providing a buffet of useful (and not so useful) features that any web developer should at least consider before tackling a Web 2.0/Ajax-based project. Dojo is actually very easy to use and can dramatically increase developer’s productivity - after the steep learning curve that is.

I have been using Dojo (and many other toolkits) for quite some time, however, I fell off the wagon during the Dojo v0.4x days due to a lack of documentation and wandering completely off the path of web development. Recently, I have found the need to venture back into that realm and needed to brush up on my Dojo skills. I immediately went to dojotoolkit.org to read up on any new features and improvements, and found that the documentation was still not quite right — and with the increased feature set available today I felt like I was back at v0.4x again and the struggle was exponential. Reflecting on how much time I wasted poking around the source only to find that the documentation didn’t match the current version’s code was a nightmare - *shudders* - I didn’t want to do that again.

Lucky for me (and the rest of us) Matthew Russell has done a great deal of the legwork in explaining the ins and outs of Dojo’s latest and greatest while dramatically reducing the learning curve. I can’t say enough how important the order of learning things is when tackling a new toolkit, API, or language. Start small, learn the building blocks, and eventually you’ll have something extremely useful in front of you that makes sense - something the Dojo docs could definitely use (not all of us want to read the API before starting) Russell’s book accomplishes this very well by explaining the roots of Dojo upfront so when you reach more complex ground (like creating custom Dijits) you’ll be well prepared.

This book points out early that it is not meant to be a primer for web development — so don’t expect any hands-on guides for HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. However, it actually does do a very good job of not overcomplicating such things. If you know what the building blocks of web development are, you’re interested in all that is the Dojo goodness, and you’re not afraid to get your feet wet then I urge you to take a look at this book. You won’t be disappointed.

5 Stars The Definitive Guide
This book is really the definitive guide when it comes to Dojo. This book comes recommended by Alex Russel who is one of the creators of Dojo. Need i say more?

5 Stars Fills in the necessary blanks on Dojo
Dojo is a comprehensive JavaScript toolkit that provides a layer of insulation between you and browser inconsistencies by leveraging JavaScript and other web technologies. Dojo is very good in situations where YUI is already being used. Dojo has a standard JavaScript library with a collection of drop-in replacements for customized HTML controls and CSS layout hacks, build tools, and unit tests.

Part 1 of this book is a standard library reference that exposes you to the various nooks and crannies of Base and Core, the parts of the toolkit that comprise a JavaScript standard library. Base contains rich functionality as diverse as AJAX calls, DOM querying based on CSS selector syntax, standardized event propagation, and functional programming utilities like map and filter. Core includes lots of additional features for operations like animations and drag-and-drop. While this can be incredibly useful, these features just aren’t as common to all use cases as the features in Base.

Part 2 explores the rest of the toolkit, including complete coverage of Dijit, the rich layer of drop-in replacements for customized HTML controls. Dijit is designed so that it can be used in the markup with little to no programming required, and makes it possible to build attractive web pages that already look and behave much like user interface controls from desktop applications.

Part 2 concludes with a discussion of the build system and unit testing framework provided by Util. The build system includes a highly configurable entry point to ShrinkSafe, a tool that leverages the Rhino JavaScript engine to compress code by as a third or more. DOH stands for the Dojo Objective Harness, and provides a standalone system for unit testing your JavaScript code. This is also discussed here.

This book assumes that you’ve done some web development with client-side technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. You by no means, however, need to be an expert in any of these skills and you really don’t need to know anything at all about what happens on a web server because Dojo is a client-side technology. Just knowing what they are and how they are used is more than enough. As in most O’Reilly applied programming technology books, there are plenty of code examples. The book just doesn’t talk about all of this stuff, it actually shows you the technology in action.

If you are an existing web developer or even a hobbyist who is able to construct a very simple web page and apply a little JavaScript and CSS to brighten things up a bit, then you are qualiified to read this book. If you haven’t even heard of HTML, JavaScript, or CSS, and have never written any code that works with any of these languages and technologies, then you might want to consider picking up a good introduction on web development before tackling this book.

The following is a detailed table of contents:

Part 1: Base and Core

Chapter 1. Toolkit Overview

Chapter 2. Language and Browser Utilities

Chapter 3. Event Listeners and Pub/Sub Communication

Chapter 4. AJAX and Server Communication

Chapter 5. Node Manipulation

Chapter 6. Internationalization

Chapter 7. Drag-and-Drop

Chapter 8. Animation and Special Effects

Chapter 9. Data Abstraction

Chapter 10. Simulated Classes and Inheritance

Chapter 11. Dijit Overview

Chapter 12. Dijit Anatomy and Lifecycle

Chapter 13. Form Widgets

Chapter 14. Layout Widgets

Chapter 15. Application Widgets

Chapter 16. Build Tools, Testing, and Production Considerations

Appendix A. A Firebug Primer

Appendix B. A Brief Survey of DojoX

Buy/More Info

This comprehensive guide shows you how to master the most important changes to Java since it was first released. Generics and the greatly expanded collection libraries have tremendously increased the power of Java 5 and Java 6. But they have also confused many developers who haven’t known how to take advantage of these new features.

“Java Generics and Collections” covers everything from the most basic uses of generics to the strangest corner cases. It teaches you everything you need to know about the collections libraries, so you’ll always know which collection is appropriate for any given task, and how to use it.

Topics covered include: Fundamentals of generics: type parameters and generic methods Other new features: boxing and unboxing, foreach loops, varargs Subtyping and wildcards Evolution not revolution: generic libraries with legacy clients and generic clients with legacy libraries Generics and reflection Design patterns for generics Sets, Queues, Lists, Maps, and their implementations Concurrent programming and thread safety with collections Performance implications of different collections

Generics and the new collection libraries they inspired take Java to a new level. If you want to take your software development practice to a new level, this book is essential reading.

Philip Wadler is Professor of Theoretical Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, where his research focuses on the design of programming languages. He is a co-designer of GJ, work that became the basis for generics in Sun’s Java 5.0.

Maurice Naftalin is Technical Director at Morningside Light Ltd., a software consultancy in the United Kingdom. He has most recently served as anarchitect and mentor at NSB Retail Systems plc, and as the leader of the client development team of a major UK government social service system.

“”A brilliant exposition of generics. By far the best book on the topic, it provides a crystal clear tutorial that starts with the basics and ends leaving the reader with a deep understanding of both the use and design of generics.”"
Gilad Bracha, Java Generics Lead, Sun Microsystems

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Excellent Book I wish i had it 10 yrs ago.
This is excellent book, i really wish i had this book 10 yrs ago, excellent verbiage and great concepts.

5 Stars Java Generics and Collections and Bears, Oh My!
Generics in Java have some non-trivial aspects, and this book does a great job of explaining when you need to use what in a comprehensive and concise manner. I thought I knew Generics, now I know I didn’t… If List looks strange to you, then this book is for you.

Not sure why half of the book is devoted to Collections (rather than having that be a separate book), but in any case these chapters are also very well written. There are simple explanations how to choose the most suitable Collection classes for any given situation.

The Collections discussion touches the issue of multi-threaded programming. I almost expect the next edition to be titled “Java Generics and Collections and Concurrency”…

5 Stars Excellent coverage of generics
The authors provide detailed examples of capabilities provided by Generics. There are plenty of examples to illustrate various concepts. And many more examples which put them all together to show how they can be used to write full fledged OOPrograms. Its admirable how a non-trivial topic like Generics has been explained in a simple and succinct style. The collections coverage is good, but not as great as the Generics coverage.

3 Stars Average, Nothing Exciting… not much more than its online alternative…
It’s a decent reference and a great read to go over generics and the collections framework. But don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing you can’t get from just reading the Sun-provided API documentation or tutorials covering the topics.

It’s comprehensive, sure… but the examples lean to near overkill on each topic in some areas. In other areas, there just isn’t enough information or example code to really drive home the ideas.

It’s average and worth the read. Not worth keeping around, though. It’s one of those “read-once-then-give-it-to-a-friend” books. Like I said, though: you should definitely read this book if you’re looking for more information on these topics. You’ll just find yourself hitting resources online for more information in areas you are particularly interested in (concurrency w/ collections, for example).

5 Stars Excellent Book on Generics and Collections
This a very good book on Collections and Generics. It is very readable and very well laid out and organized. Besides treating Generics thoroughly it also treats threadsafe collections very well too.

For these reasons I highly recommend this book.

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Step-by-step guide reveals best practices for enhancing Web sites with Ajax

• A step-by-step guide to enhancing Web sites with Ajax.
• Uses progressive enhancement techniques to ensure graceful degradation (which makes sites usable in all browsers).
• Shows readers how to write their own Ajax scripts instead of relying on third-party libraries.

Web site designers love the idea of Ajax–of creating Web pages in which information can be updated without refreshing the entire page. But for those who aren’t hard-core programmers, enhancing pages using Ajax can be a challenge. Even more of a challenge is making sure those pages work for all users. In Bulletproof Ajax, author Jeremy Keith demonstrates how developers comfortable with CSS and (X)HTML can build Ajax functionality without frameworks, using the ideas of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement to ensure that the pages work for all users. Throughout this step-by-step guide, his emphasis is on best practices with an approach to building Ajax pages called Hijax, which improves flexibility and avoids worst-case scenarios.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars A Brief But Thorough Tour of Ajax
A Brief But Thorough Tour of Ajax

Bulletproof Ajax will surprise you at first at its slim 196 pages of content. But as with any book, it’s the density of good information and quality of writing that count the most. I find both to be on the mark in both respects. The content is timely, relevant, and very up to date. As we all know, the landscape in web design can make one thing hot and another not in a matter of months. It is a credit to the New Riders/Peachpit group that they could get such a relevant book on shelves while it still packed a punch.

This book is best suited to the newcomer to Ajax that will appreciate the entire survey of how it came to be, how the XMLHttpRequest limitations hold you back from accessing any other domain than the one serving up the page. However, Jeremy quickly shows you the workaround — JSON and the script tag, which have no such limitations. This is an example of the dense and useful content I said this book is notable for.

The author then explains his methodology for gracefully degrading Ajaxed pages that he calls the “Hijax” approach. You would be right to ask, why do I need the author to tell me about degrading? I just want to Ajax everything on my pages. But the author gives you insight into the hodgepodge of support the various Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari browsers provide, each with their own quirks. This is a real timesaving chapter. Learn from the author’s research on this topic.

Lastly, the book gives you a full beginning-to-end tour of applying all you have learned in the book in a chapter they title “Putting it all together.” As a “just get me to the code” kind of guy, this is the chapter I immediately turned to when I opened the book for the first time. I definitely think persons new to Ajax will covet this chapter. It assembles all the building blocks for Ajax in a way that will make it click for most developers.

In summary, this book is brief, and not exhaustive, but that’s the very reason I purchased it. It doesn’t get wordy, the chapters are accurate and information-packed, and the book concludes with a nice bringing-it-all-together example that lets you see a tangible manifestation to everything you have learned. This books comes with my strong commendations.

5 Stars An interesting book
This was very interesting. I don’t know if its completely bulletproof, but it IS about as bullet resistant as you can make it. He definitely makes good points in every chapter about building and designing your ajax application.

I recommend you read this book when you are learning ajax. For the advanced developer, I would hope you are using these techniques. You should at least read this to make sure you are using similar techniques.

For the self-taught, I would say to definitely read this book. You’ll make it through it in a few days of on and off reading. It took me a week of reading on the train (25 minutes each way, so about 5 hours). I’m still thinking about what he said and analyzing it. This tells me he had some excellent ideas.

A recommended Ajax programming book. Don’t let page counts fool you. I have some “Bible” books that are awful, BUT they’re 1000 pages.

-T-

5 Stars A very well explained and example-based introduction to AJAX
I bought this book in order to get an easy and speedy up-to-date with the AJAX buzzword. This book does the job.

It is a short book (less than 200 pages). The writing style is very inviting and easy to read. I actually read it cover to cover easily in a very short time period.

The examples that walk you through are easy to understand and give the feel for the material.

Terms are very well explained. Jargon is explained too, which helps positioning yourself within the hype buzzword soup you read on the web.

The book explains nicely what AJAX is and what it isn’t. It explores a few different ways of doing the same thing. It touches the important topics, giving a feel to them and understanding of “their trick”. This is just enough to understand the material.

After reading the book I feed confident to be able to do ahead with my work: I have the basic understanding and the terminology so whenever I need something, I know if it is available, or even relevant or not and then can use an on-line resource or a reference book and complement the necessary knowledge to do the task.

I liked the fact that the author doesn’t take for granted a specific browser. He explains how to do things in a way that will be compliant with all browsers. I liked the fact that the author promotes fallbacks, that is, alternative things to happen in case JacaScript is not supported, or that a certain operation is not supported. I liked that the examples and explanations are “backward compatibility motivated”.

It is clear that the author is not possessed by the technology itself but thinks primarily about the user and the user experience, thus, compliance and backward compatibility are considered, but also feedback on progress and on changes made to the page and other accessibility issues.

I recommend the book as an introduction to the topic.

5 Stars Focused, Successful
I bought the book to get a better understanding of the back-end basics of Ajax-piggybacked websites. We hear plenty about the compilation of technologies (asynchronous server requests, JavaScript, the DOM, etc.), but until this point I hadn’t come across a book that was enticing enough in terms of its credibility now and down the road.

Bulletproof Ajax fills this void - Jeremy Keith adeptly walks through the technology and its components by defining Ajax and its appropriate objectives for a Web that is accessibility-conscious; gives an overview of JavaScript and the DOM; gets to the heart of Ajax by picking apart the XMLHttpRequest; discusses data formats for using Ajax on your site; goes over progressive enhancement (aka Hijax) for creating a site that is entirely usable for someone without JavaScript but that is enhanced for people who do have JavaScript; brings to attention the challenges and difficulties with Ajax; devotes a chapter to Ajax and accessibility; runs through the creation of an entire site (viewable at http://bulletproofajax.com/shop/ ) in PHP (though it’s unnecessary to know the language) that utilizes Ajax gracefully using object-oriented programming; and finally discusses Ajax toolkits and frameworks.

Throughout the book, Jeremy uses good coding examples, and works through the idea of progressive enhancement in a way that anticipates the reader’s questions of optimal programming practices with Ajax. The book prepares the reader for designing sites in a very reliable, professional, accessible way. And while the book is filled with functional coding samples of the various topics (which are then all pulled together in their completion at the end of the book), this book does *not* try to be the Bible of Ajax to go to for any obscure programming solution that a web programmer might imagine. It presents a methodology and gives the reader the tools for producing that solution on their own - to me, that is one of the great successes of the book.

4 Stars Excellent Intro to Ajax
Bulletproof Ajax is an excellent intro to Ajax. It covers both coding Ajax and also design issues and other considerations, all in a very clear style. The coding examples start simple and are extended step-by-step so they’re easy to follow.

So I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for an easy high-level intro to Ajax.

Two concerns:

The title is odd. You’d think “Bulletproof” would have to do with oh say… bulletproofing. But it doesn’t. It’s a broad high-level intro.

Jeremy strongly believes that the right approach to incorporating Ajax such that it’s not required for the site to be usable. So, if say javascript isn’t enabled on the browser the pages still work fine as traditional fetch-new-pages-from-the-server pages. He calls this the “Hijax” approach and the examples are structured this way. To me this makes sense and I wouldn’t quibble, but it is a design choice and not the simplest one for starting with and learning Ajax.

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It has taken four years, but with Head First Java the introductory Java book category has finally come of age. This is an excellent book, far more capable than any of the scores of Java-for-novices books that have come before it. Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates deserve rich kudos–and big sales–for developing this book’s new way of teaching the Java programming language, because any reader with even a little bit of discipline will come away with true understanding of how the language works. Perhaps best of all, this is no protracted “Hello, World” introductory guide. Readers get substantial exposure to object-oriented design and implementation, serialization, neatwork programming, threads, and Remote Method Invocation (RMI).

Key to the authors’ teaching style are carefully designed graphics. Rather than explain class inheritance (to cite one example) primarily with text, the authors use a series of tree diagrams that clarify the mechanism far more succinctly. The diagrams are carefully annotated with arrows and notes. Also characteristic of the unique teaching strategy is heavy reliance on exercises, in which the reader is asked to complete partial classes, write whole new code segments and do design work. Though there’s little discussion of why the exercises’ correct answers are what they are, it’s clear that the practice work was carefully designed to reinforce the lesson at hand. If you’ve waited this long to give Java a try, this book is a great choice. –David Wall

Topics covered: The Java programming language for people with no Java experience, and even people with no programming experience at all. Key concepts read like a list of Java features: Object oriented design, variable type and scope, object properties and methods, inheritance and polymorphism, exceptions, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), network connectivity, Java archives (JAR files), and Remote Method Invocation (RMI).

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Not bad for a text book
Hard to make learning Java fun but they do try. It is a fairly easy read with lots of pictures and alternative ways of getting the same point accross. Not a reference book on Java, it will teach you Java.

5 Stars A great refresher
It has been quite a while since I did any serious programming, particularly in Java. This book served as a great refresher, and was an easy read. The authors’ premise that by adding pictures, jokes and puzzles help to hold the reader’s attention was true for me.

Given the format, I thought that the book did a great job of covering the basics of programming in Java, including threads, IO and even some Swing.

I’ll buy more books in this series.

5 Stars Best Java book on the Market….
This book is the most user friendly book to teach Java. This is how I got started, and am now a full-on software developer for a fortune-500 company making a good living. I recommend this and other books in the HF series to anyone wanting to learn programming on their own.

4 Stars Nice for Beginners
Let me start by saying that I had no experience when it came to writing any sort of code before I got this book.

This book’s graphical approach appealed to me and indeed helped a lot. I’m still no where near finished with it but so far it has been very useful. I wish it had suggested some IDE’s to help me get started like Eclipse or NetBeans but I knew some programmers who could help me out.

In terms of general knowledge of java and its uses this book does an outstanding job. I enjoy the humor and the examples in this book as well. It’s not the best book if you want to know comprehensive java but it isn’t made for that. It only got 4 stars because I don’t feel like a text book needs a rave review.

4 Stars Good intro to Java — mediocre for Head First
I’ll admit it… I’m a huge fan of the Head First series. This is the third I own and at least two others (currently unreleased) are on my to-buy list just waiting for their release. The style of Head First books in general is fantastic and helps things make sense right away. That being said, I was a bit disappointed in certain aspects of Head First Java. Make no mistake, I still heartily recommend it, but it was not as good as it could have been.

Frankly, the only specific identifiable element that I disliked was the crossword puzzles. Now, I LOVE the crossword puzzles in other Head First books. In fact, they’re one of my favorite elements in the Head First equation. However, the crosswords in Head First Java were lacking, often with strange “hints” that were more confusing than helping. Examples: “can’t pin it down”, “dept. of LAN jockeys”, and “Pi house”.

Additionally, the overall feel of the book was inferior to the previous two I’ve read (Head First C# and Head First SQL). Unfortunately, I can’t articulate exactly what the difference is, but it just wasn’t as engrossing as the others.

In the end, I do recommend the book. It is a fine-quality product. However, do not use this as a prime example of the Head First series — it is not their best.

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No one brews up a better Java guide than Cay Horstmann and in this Third Edition of Big Java he’s perfected his recipe. Thoroughly updated to include Java 6, the Third Edition of Horstmann’s bestselling text helps you absorb computing concepts and programming principles, develop strong problem-solving skills, and become a better programmer, all while exploring the elements of Java that are needed to write real-life programs.

A top-notch introductory text for beginners, Big Java, Third Edition is also a thorough reference for students and professionals alike to Java technologies, Internet programming, database access, and many other areas of computer science.

Features of the Third Edition:

• The ‘Objects Gradual’ approach leads you into object-oriented thinking step-by-step, from using classes, implementing simple methods, all the way to designing your own object-oriented programs.
• A strong emphasis on test-driven development encourages you to consider outcomes as you write programming code so you design better, more usable programs
• Helpful “Testing Track” introduces techniques and tools step by step, ensuring that you master one before moving on to the next
• New teaching and learning tools in WileyPLUS–including a unique assignment checker that enables you to test your programming problems online before you submit them for a grade
• Graphics topics are developed gradually throughout the text, conveniently highlighted in separate color-coded sections
• Updated coverage is fully compatible with Java 5 and includes a discussion of the latest Java 6 features

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Good entry level java book
Big java is a good place to begin learning how to program, and to begin learning the Java language. It teaches all the basic control structures and syntax necessary to begin programming quickly. They also have an optional WileyPlus program for testing / additional review and source code. It might have been nice if the source code was included for free with the book on a Cd or through a download but still a good book.

2 Stars Don’t buy unless you have to for a course
So-so ho hum textbook. Only got it as it was required for a course I was taking. I would NOT recommend this as a resource to learn the language - you are gonna get rid of it as soon as the class is over. Buy it as cheap as you can and dump it after the class.

4 Stars Good
Having never taken a program course before this, I was pleasantly surprised at the candid nature of Horstmann’s writing. Often, author of textbooks will sound promising in their introductions but not deliver in the execution of a tome. Here, however, we find in Horstmann a author gifted at explaining difficult concepts with a lucidity that cannot always be taken for granted. Bravo!

4 Stars A little too complete, a little too expensive
Don’t get me wrong; this is a good Java text. The concepts are explained in a pretty clear manner, which is a trick when trying to explain OOP concepts to someone who has never programmed (which is the book’s target audience). But that also leads me to my main criticism of the book: it tries to cover too much material. Anyone who knows C or C++ will find significant chunks of the book to be only review. Even Visual Basic coders will find parts of the book that cover stuff they already know (e.g. rudimentary programming concepts).

So if you’ve never written a computer program, and you want to learn Java, this might be your best bet (although your goal — and the price of the book — are a bit daunting). If you already know how to program, but don’t know about objects or Java, I would recommend Eckel’s “Thinking in Java” (4th edition), or “Head First Java” from O’Reilly.

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