<pre>
Author/s : Dejan Bosanac
Publisher : Addison-Wesley
Category : Advanced Java
Review by : Ulf Dittmer
Rating : 6 horseshoes</pre>
This book aims to be an introduction to combining
Java with scripting by presenting popular Java-based scripting languages, making the case for when and how to use scripting and Java, explaining the prevalent APIs, and showing some useful
patterns of how to make it work.
A full third of the book is taken up by introducing scripting APIs, namely the Apache Bean Scripting Framework (BSF) and the javax.script package found in Java 6 and its non-yet-released web scripting component.
Another quarter is used for an introduction to Groovy, and many examples are written in that language; so if for some reason Groovy is of no interest to the reader that might be a drawback. JavaScript and (to a lesser degree) PHP are the other languages being used.
While just about everyone interested in the subject will find something (or a few somethings) of interest in this book, it doesn't feel like a coherent whole. It touches authoritatively on a number of subjects, amongst which the reader will choose which ones are applicable to him, and ignore the remainder. The style is technical, and even through the author seeks to present motivation repeatedly as to why to use scripting with Java, this becomes a bit tedious after a while. Overall the book is quite readable, though, and the numerous code examples interspersed with the text help provide some out-of-the-box applicability of the concepts presented.
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