Author: Dan Allen
Publisher: Manning Publications
Reviewed by: Christophe Verre
Rating: 9 horseshoes
"Seam in Action" starts with an introduction on Seam, then shows the reader what Seam can provide out of the box via its source generator. Along with Appendix A, this makes it a great tutorial to start using Seam. You'll be touching a lot of different tools and technologies and having basic knowledge on
JSF is recommended, but the author never lets you down by always introducing what is necessary to know. Reading the online tutorial on JSF introduced in the book is still highly recommended for anybody who has never touched JSF before.
Part Two on Seam fundamentals, almost 200 pages, may be overwhelming at first, especially Chapter Three. Fortunately, diagrams and code snippets are very helpful to digest this volume of information. Part Three introduces Seam's conversation context,
java persistence and Seam's enhancement on java persistence. There is again a lot of information in this part, but Chapter 10 is a great hands-on chapter that allows you to put into practice what was explained in the previous chapters. The book finishes with chapters on business requirements like dealing with security, Ajax, file uploading and much more.
Seam is such a huge framework, it must have been challenging for the author to pack so much information into his book. Some parts are high paced, but still well explained. This book is a gem, highly recommended for any Seam enthusiast. And don't miss the two bonus chapters at the publisher's homepage.