This weeks book Giveaway:

[Carl Trusiak]

This Week we are giving away four copies of the book "Professional Java Server Programming J2EE 1.3 Edition".
And the best part... The Author Subrahmanyam Allamaraju is online to answer your questions
Everyone give a warm JavaRanch welcome to Subrahmanyam
For details, check out JavaRanch Book Promotions
Thanks to the folks at Wrox for the books!

[Dave Van Even]

welcome Subrahmanyam Allamaraju ( cool name )
nice book you got there !! 4.5 stars at amazon, it must be good ! I don't know much about J2EE, except that I want to learn it because I'm looking for a java job right now and want to end up in enterprise programming

bye, have fun
Dave Van Even

[Matts Smith]

Welcome Subrahmanyam
can I have my book now

seriously, what do you think of EB? Any success experiences using these. I'm asking cause I think EB are just plain wrong.

[Ajith Kallambella]

Welcome Subrahmanyam, nice to have you with us here.
A note to everyone - In order to qualify for the book giveaway, your name must comply with the JavaRanch naming policy. We require names to have at least two words, separated by a space, and strongly recommend that you use your full real name.
Have fun!
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Ajith Kallambella M.
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java�2 Platform.
IBM Certified Developer - XML and Related Technologies, V1.
Co-author of Java 2 Certification Passport

[Junilu Lacar]

Subrahmanyam,
Welcome to JavaRanch!
I noticed that the J2EE 1.3 has fewer authors than your other book "Professional Java Server Programming, J2EE Edition". Is the new book meant to be a revised edition or does it have a different coverage althogether?
One thing I liked about the previous book was that it covered Unit Testing. Does the new book have a section on Unit Testing? What about using Jakarta frameworks like Struts, is this discussed?
Thanks,
Junilu

[Luis Araujo]

Hello, Subrahmanyam Allamaraju,
We do not have any Portuguese translated EJB books. I would be interested in translating one. What do you think?
Luis.

[ruilin yang]

I have the previous two books: Professional Java Server Programming. They are good books. I would like to know whay new in the new book - j2EE 1.3 edition.
Please comment
Thanks
Ruilin

[Tom Ben]

Welcome Subrahmanyam Allamaraju!
What is your take on EJB? I am looking to move our paltform from SE to EE and want to get some opions on this.
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Sun Certified Programmer on the Java 2 Platform

[Junilu Lacar]

Originally posted by Tom Ben:
I am looking to move our paltform from SE to EE and want to get some opions on this.

Funny you should ask. I just read an editorial piece in the December 2001 "Java Solutions" this morning written by Allen Holub. I would be interested in hearing what you all think about what he wrote.
Junilu

[This message has been edited by JUNILU LACAR (edited December 04, 2001).]

[hanumanth reddy]

does your book more on JMS and Corba clients ?

[Max Tomlinson]

What do the authors think of of the proliferation of APIs that seem to be released on an almost daily basis what will no doubt be part of the next J2EE? Anything prefixed with a J seems to be a candidate: JMX, JCA etc. Is there a risk that Java might be muddying up it's elegant simplicity with potential bloat? One of the most powerful uses of Java still seems to be the servlet platform, which has made some great strides with 2.3, but the App Server space seems to be becoming a little unwieldy, especially when one considers it's still reaching maturity.
Any comments?
Max Tomlinson

[Gerry Giese]

Is this the book that has all the chapters written by different authors? I think I saw an earlier version of this book, and was disappointed with the lack of intergration. One chapter would talk about using one method to do X, then a following chapter talking about Y would use a different method to do X. I hope this one has a little more focus. It's nice to see different perspectives, but it's tough to synthesize your own solution using patchworks of this and that.

[Scott Ramsey]

Mr.Allamaraju:
I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question for you, but it is one which interests me, one that I think you probably have already thought through quite well, and one which others in this discussion might have as well:
What are some of the scenarios in which using EJBs inappropriate, from both a technical and a business perspective? Without a doubt using EJBs requires specialized tools and specialized knowledge, both of which can be expensive and introduce risk to a project. To phrase it differently, what technical and business factors justify the expense & effort?
I have found some discussion of this issue elsewhere, but would very much like to have your thoughts. (If it help you structure a response, here is a little background on me: I come from a business background, have an MBA, and am now spending some time getting my hands dirty in the technology in order to understand it better.)
Thanks.
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Scott Ramsey
SCJP, SCJD

[Vladimir Ergovic]

Hi, Subrahmanyam !
Nice to have you here.
I saw a little bit on the Amazon and I want to ask you about container. In your book did you put some internals and details of the container itself?
Thanks,
Vlad

[Tom Ben]

That is a really good article. It is so true in today's field. People just want the end result and care nothing for how it gets done (which is very sloopy)!

Originally posted by JUNILU LACAR:
Funny you should ask. I just read an editorial piece in the December 2001 "Java Solutions" this morning written by Allen Holub. I would be interested in hearing what you all think about what he wrote.
Junilu

[This message has been edited by JUNILU LACAR (edited December 04, 2001).]

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Sun Certified Programmer on the Java 2 Platform

[Scott Ramsey]

Junilu Lacar:
Thanks for the link to the article by Allen Holub; it addresses some of the issues involved in my question above.


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Scott Ramsey
SCJP, SCJD

[JeanLouis Marechaux]

Hello
[From the amazon website about this book]
"No knowledge of J2EE technologies is assumed, and developers already familiar with the 1.2 release of J2EE may not find the material sufficiently advanced for their purposes. "
Does that mean it is an entry-level book ? If yes, is there any J2EE 1.3 books available somewhere for more experienced developers ?
[This message has been edited by Bill Bailey (edited December 04, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Bill Bailey (edited December 04, 2001).]

[Marcos Maia]

Hi, It would be great to won this book, I�m sure it�s quite usefull.

[Subrahmanyam Allamaraju]

>> container. In your book did you put some internals and details of >> the container itself?
This book is for J2EE developers but not J2EE container developers. However, there is sufficient insight into how things work underneath at appropriate places.
Subbu

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Subrahmanyam Allamaraju
Author of Professional Java Server Programming J2EE 1.3 Edition

[Dony Meng]

It's a very useful book for people like to work on J2EE, it includes almost all the topics related J2EE. Most of all, it has message bean and new version of jsp and servelet compparing to Java Sever programming J2EE edition. It's definitly one of the best book for J2EE.

[Fei Ng]

Welcome author Subrahmanyam,

Since this book has many authors which parts did you work it on??

[Himanshu Jhamb]

Hi Subrahmanyam.
My interest lies particularily in knowing the usefulness/overheads of using EJBs in a project & in what scenarios should one not go for an EJB enabled application...
I read Allan Holub's article & it was quite thought provoking.
I would appreciate if you or someone else can point me to links where I can get some information about the Design of applications with EJBs... and answers to
Questions like ...
If there are 100 different tasks at hand & they can be done by having only one EJB with all logic build inside OR 25 different EJBs. Which approach should be taken ? To give this problem a little more twist... Lets say Tasks# 1,2,3,4,5 are accessed 90% of the time whereas the others are accessed only 10% of the time... Does it make sense to have 2 different EJBs with more instances of Type 1 EJBs in the EJB Pool & Less instances of Type 2 EJBs (less frequently accessed) in the EJB Pool? OR It doesn't matter... Just have one EJB with all functionality built into it.
... Am looking forward to your book...
thanks.
- Himanshu

[Subrahmanyam Allamaraju]

If I analyze your questions, I find the following points:
- Granularity: Your first question is on how to break the functionality across various components. There are no straight-forward answers to this question, and depend on many factors. There are entire books devoted to this simple question. The bottom-line is that, depending on the overall architecture, and the nature of communication between clients and servers, you need to design an optimal granularity for your application.
- How to implement, once you decide the granularity? Should one go for EJBs or use something else?
While answering questions like this, I prefer to think of EJBs as coarse-grained components, and consider the fact that every EJB is a remote object, and go back to the fundamentals of why one should use distributed computing. Why should you move the thread-of-control from machine to machine unless there is a strong reason? Coarse-grained designs are those that consider this point.
Note that, despite the simplicity the EJBs expose, there is so much plumbing going on behind the scenes to provide distribution, security, etc., and each of these features come with a price.
So,
(a) Use EJBs when there is sufficient granularity of functionality
(b) Treat each EJB as a distributed service, and not just as another object.
There is an interesting paper at www.joelonsoftware.com on three fundamental mistakes in computing/software. One of the mistakes is trying to treat remote objects as local objects. Modern-day distributed computing technologies (including EJBs) abstract the plumbing so much that we often forget the fact!
Subbu

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Subrahmanyam Allamaraju
Author of Professional Java Server Programming J2EE 1.3 Edition

[ruilin yang]

I guess your book covers a lots on EJB 2.0 ? Message Beans, etc.
How intensive on using UML for presentation ?
Any details on architecture design ?
Does the book cover several application servers ?
Thanks in advance
Ruilin

[ruilin yang]

Any chapters for comparison between J2EE and .NET in many aspects ?
Thanks

[Subrahmanyam Allamaraju]

> I guess your book covers a lots on EJB 2.0 ? Message Beans, etc.
Yes.
> How intensive on using UML for presentation ?
You'll find usage in examples.
> Any details on architecture design ?
Yes. There are chapters discussing various design/architecture issues.
> Does the book cover several application servers ?
No. But there is a chapter discussing what you should look for.
Subbu

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Subrahmanyam Allamaraju
Author of Professional Java Server Programming J2EE 1.3 Edition

[sonny kher]

do you have a section on Tomcat? or any other App server??

[Mahendra Nambiar]

Hi,
I am running into a problem where an external process is calling an EJB housed in Websphere 3.5 and it takes a very long time to process it. Whereas when an inprocess servlet does the same call, it is very quick... Is this because of the marshalling.. and is there something I can do about it?
thanks,
Mahendra
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SCJP, JCERT Certified Solutions Developer.

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SCJP, JCERT Certified Solutions Developer.

[Tom Ben]

Subrahmanyam welcome
I want to move my company from SE to EE. I have not spent alot of time looking at EE so what is your insight on the improvments that I will get?
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Sun Certified Programmer on the Java 2 Platform

[Simon Villalon]

What would the best approach be when designing a J2EE application?
Do you recommend patterns in your book?
Thanks a lot.

[Anonymous]

Welcome Subrahmanyam
Hi,
I hope I win this book, It would be great, I�m sure it�s quite usefull.
thanks for spending with us some time
Yoel Stern

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Sun Certified Programmer for JAVA 2 Platform

[Karthikraj Magapu]

Hi Subrahmanyam,
I would like to say something about EJB and enterprise development :
EJB is a wonderful technology for true enterprise development.
The problem is that many people actually dont understand what an enterprise application is and like to believe that their application is really an enterprise application and go ahead and use EJB. Then somewhere along the way, they begin to feel that EJB is not adding value to their application. This is where they start getting negative about EJB.
The situation is similar to using engineering methodologies used by NASA to manufacture a space shuttle, to fix your car!! (overkill!!)
If you have a true enterprise system, (the definition and understanding of which can take a book) EJB does well to get your work done.
If your system needs to be distributed, scalable, robust, developed in many tiers, needs primary services like security, concurrency, transactions, persistence, will be used by millions of users, THEN you need EJB.
You have to first design your application, find the right technology needed to develop your technology (client/server, standalone app, enterprise solution etc. ) then decide upon the specific technology like EJB.
Just my humble thoughts !
Thanks
Karthik

[Fei Ng]

Author,
how do you see J2EE vs. .Net ?? Really want to hear you opinion on this.
from some post:
Which architecture is more robust for applications which require extensive search mechanisms and documents sharing and transfer and collaboration ?
Which options will reduce time to market and cost to market or develop and cost to maintain applications ?

[Harpreet Hira]

Hi Subrahmanyam,
1. What all J2EE technologies did you cover in your book, other than EJB, JSP and Servlets. Did you include java mail, jaf, jms,.... also.
2. Have you followed any of J2ee design patterns (like MVC, DAO, session facade, ....) to elaborate your examples.
3. Did you use UML.
Waiting for your response
Thanks
Harpreet
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Sun Certified Java2 Programmer

[Prasanna Wamanacharya]

Hello Javaranchers,
I guess this is the most grueling question to answer...
How does J2EE compare to .NET?
Thanks,
Prasanna.

[Subrahmanyam Allamaraju]

> The problem is that many people actually dont understand what an
> enterprise application is and like to believe that their
> application is really an enterprise application and go ahead and
> use EJB. Then somewhere along the way, they begin to feel that
> EJB is not adding value to their application. This is where they
> start getting negative about EJB.
> You have to first design your application, find the right
> technology needed to develop your technology (client/server,
> standalone app, enterprise solution etc. ) then decide upon the
> specific technology like EJB.
Well said. Fully agree with you. The same happens with CORBA. Many people complain that CORBA is too complex and an overkill. This happens when CORBA is treated like just another component building technology. It does not work that way.
Subbu
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Subrahmanyam Allamaraju
Author of Professional Java Server Programming J2EE 1.3 Edition

[Bruce Jin]

I have the first and second version of this book. I want to know what I will miss if I don�t buy the third version (J2EE 1.3)?
I think version 2 is significantly better than version 1.
How about version 3?

[Mary Taylor]

Having this promotion this week has given me the push to deploy my first EJB. Thanks! I am working through Sun's tutorial at http://java.sun.com/j2ee/j2sdkee/techdocs/guides/ejb/html. I have a couple of other threads going with issues I am having with the first deployment. Always excited about new technology, I am anxious to get past the newbie stage and become experienced. Not to mention finding a job.
Regards,

Betty

[ruilin yang]

Subbu,
A lots J2EE patterns suggested by Sun is based on the EJB1.0/1.1. EJB 2.0 introduce some new technologies/architectures. I qould like to ask you to comment on the impact of EJB 2.0 to the previous J2EE patterns, e.g. Session Facade, Composite Entity Beans, DAO, Value Object, etc.
I feel to clarify these issues is important for design with the EJB 2.0.
Thanks in advance
Ruilin

[Subrahmanyam Allamaraju]

> A lots J2EE patterns suggested by Sun is based on the EJB1.0/1.1. > EJB 2.0 introduce some new technologies/architectures. I qould
> like to ask you to comment on the impact of EJB 2.0 to the
> previous J2EE patterns, e.g. Session Facade, Composite Entity
> Beans, DAO, Value Object, etc.
I don't see much impact on the patterns. Features like enhanced CMP or local interfaces do not affect most of the programmings tasks that these patterns address.
Subbu
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Subrahmanyam Allamaraju
Author of Professional Java Server Programming J2EE 1.3 Edition