Books, books, books.. Mastering EJB 3.0

[Ismael Upright]

Hey there,


I'm a complete newbie to EJB's, I want to take SCBCD5 exam, I want to read just one book and probably I'll buy enthuware stuff for SCBCD5 as well as take some free mock exams..


I see some threads with questions about which book is good for SCBCD.

Most people choose between "EJB3 in Action" and "O'Reilly's Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0". But in the SCBCD Links I see that there is a free book named "Mastering EJB 3.0". Do you think it is good for this exam?

[krishna bulusu]

A Big No No!!!

[Ulf Dittmer]

Originally posted by krishna bulusu:
A Big No No!

This answer would be much more useful if you told us why you have that opinion.

[krishna bulusu]

I have bought that book. That book would not be sufficient for SCBCD 5.0.
I would be good for basics but from exam point of view it is not recommended.

[Antonio Tercero]

Preparing for scbcd exam with only one book is not enough. If you want to learn all main concepts about EJB's, I recommend you the following book:
EJB Developer Guide by Michael Sikora (254 pages).
It contains lots of examples and it's easy to read.
Note: that book is not enough to prepare for SCBCD and you will have to read the specifications in order to learn more about all the objectives.

[Ismael Upright]

uhm... I guess that there is no such book for SCBCD as Sierra's book for SCJP?...


What would be sufficient for SCBCD in general if reading any book is insufficient?

[Christophe Verré]

What would be sufficient for SCBCD in general if reading any book is insufficient?

First, studying books about EJB3 and JPA. Then either :

Read the specs

Read Mikalai Zaikin's SCBCD 5.0 Guide and refer to the specs

Buy commercial mocks and refer to the specs

I don't think that relying on books will be enough, so it is my opinion that you'll have to refer to the specs. I think that commercial mocks can help you figure out which important topics are not in books.

[Joe San]

EJB 3 in action is a very good resource to start off with. For JPA topics, Pro EJB 3 is a good material.

After the above two books, follow what Christope has said in the post above.

[Ismael Upright]

Thanks for the clues.

But still I'm wondering what book would be good to start. I know that only reading a book is not enough but still it's a good start to read one, as you wrote.


Is "Mastering EJB 3.0" good for a start or maybe it is much worse that one of those: "EJB3 in Action" and "O'Reilly's Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0"?
[ August 04, 2008: Message edited by: Ismael Upright ]

[Christophe Verré]

Sorry, I didn't read Mastering EJB 3.0. I'm using EJB3 In Action, and it's really easy to follow.

[Ismael Upright]

I see, Christophe. Can you tell me if "EJB3 In Action" contains material about JPA or do I need a separate book for JPA?

[shilpa danve]

what are specs referred in this thread? where can we get these?

[Kai Witte]

Hello,

the specifications that are relevant for the SCBCD 5 certification are the EJB 3.0 spec and the JPA spec. Both can be downloaded from Sun.

If you are new to EJB, then a general simple introduction that focusses on practical use is a good start. I recommend the Sun EE Tutorial. AFTER that you can study for the exam specific topics.

For that I recommend Mikalai Zaikin's SCBCD 5.0 Guide, as Christophe suggested. It consists mostly of the relevant spec excerpts, copied together according to the exam topics. Study chapter by chapter, along with the corresponding Enthuware questions.

In my blog I suggested a way to prepare with Enthuware. You will also find information about uCertify and Whizlabs, but my current impression is that Enthuware has a better mock question quality. (Hard to prove, though.) uCertify has a nice interactive mentor to get started with every section, but it doesn't cover all you need.

Kai

[Christophe Verré]

Can you tell me if "EJB3 In Action" contains material about JPA

Yes, it contains all the basic stuff about JPA. You can check the table of content here.

[Ismael Upright]

Thank you, Christophe, and everyone else!

I think that I've made a choice

[John Stone]

thanks for the tips on books,
now I just have to worry that by the time I finish my study of ejb3 there will be new version released :-)