Questions about the book Java EE 5 Development

[Rohan Dhruva]

Hi David,
Welcome to the form
I have a few questions about the book Java EE 5 Development using GlassFish Application Server --

1) What is the level of knowledge you expect from the reader ? I'm a SCJP5, is that enough prerequisite to start out with the book ?
In short, can the book be used by an absolute "newbie" or some knowledge of Java is required ? Is the book better suited as a "tutorial" or a "reference" book ?

2) Does the book give coverage to technologies like Spring, Stripes and Hibernate ?

Thanks !

[Alan K Wong]

Dear David,
Thanks for writing a book on J2EE development on the Glassfish server. As far as I'm aware, your book, Sun's J2EE 5 tutorial, and _EJB 3 in Action_ are the only books that explicitly discuss application development on the Glassfish server.

A few questions:
1) Who is your intended audience? A J2EE novice? A J2EE 1.4 developer who wants to know how to transition to J2EE 5? A newcomer to Glassfish?

2) Do you spend much time discussing the architecture of the Glassfish server? For instance, JBoss AS has a modular architecture, which looks like a sound idea. It's great to use if you want to customize your AS, but you have to be willing to pay a department of deployers who know what they're doing in JBoss.

For myself, I develop J2EE applications in the finance industry. We have been revisiting our choice of application servers, and Glassfish is a candidate. Do you offer objective reasons to switch to Glassfish? Or refrain from switching?

Regards,
Alan

[Paul Michael]

What is the level of EJB 3 coverage in this book? Can this be used as a reference when preparing for SCBCD 5.0?

Thanks.

[Sergey Vlasov]

You can find more details on this book at http://java-ee-5-glassfish.packtpub.com/index.htm

[David Heffelfinger]

Rhohan,

The book assumes Java experience but no previous Java EE or J2EE experience. You should have no trouble at all following the book. Although the book is primarily a tutorial, it can also be used as a reference.

The book focuses on core Java EE 5 technologies and APIs, there is a chapter covering frameworks that build on top of Java EE 5, the chapter covers Facelets, Ajax4jsf and Seam.

Alan,

The book is aimed at both Java developers with no experience in J2EE or Java EE and to developers familiar with older versions of J2EE that want to update their skills to the latest Java EE 5 technologies.

The book focuses primarily on how to develop applications and how to deploy them to GlassFish, since we believed this material would be the most useful to application developers. GlassFish internals and architecture are not discussed in detail.

There are several reasons to choose GlassFish, 100% Java EE 5 compliance (it is the reference implementation for Java EE 5, after all), excellent performance, a very nice and user friendly web console for administration, and price.

As you probably know, GlassFish is open source and free, however Sun sells support for Glassfish (rebranded as Sun Application Server), and the price of this support is very competitive when compared to offerings from other application server vendors.

Paul,

There is a whole chapter covering EJB 3. Quite frankly I am not sure what level of knowledge is needed for SCBCD 5.0, but my gut feeling is that a book focusing solely on EJB 3 might be a better choice for preparing to obtain this certification.

Sergey,

Thanks for providing the URL.

David

[Rohan Dhruva]

Thanks a lot David, that clears it