Core Java Volume II: LDAP Coverage

[Bruce Alspaugh]

Hi Cay,

In the eighth edition of "Core Java Volume II," you have an introduction to LDAP in chapter four on database programming. The introduction mentions it was adapted from your other book "Core Java Server Faces" second edition. Unfortunately, I can't find LDAP coverage in the tenth edition, or the third edition of "Core Java Server Faces." Is there some reason you dropped LDAP coverage from both books?  I would like to see it come back. Is there any chance LDAP coverage made it back into the eleventh edition?

Bruce

[Cay Horstmann]

Hi, LDAP was one of those things that got purged when there wasn't enough general interest in it. These days, the old editions never die, they just fade away into obscurity at Safari. I just looked--the 8th edition is still there, so the LDAP material isn't lost.

Older editions of Core Java had sections on CORBA, WS-* web services, etc. In each edition I remove what I think is no longer mainstream. Doesn't mean it's bad--LDAP is good for the job.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Unless you want the book to expand to three volumes, you have to be ruthless about what you leave out.

[Cay Horstmann]

Deciding what to include and what to leave out is a really important part of writing. It is easier to include every last tidbit, but it would not be very useful for most readers. Case in point: The Java platform module system. When writing that chapter, my hardest job was to ruthlessly eliminate coverage of the minor minutiae that are of interest only to a handful of developers.

Cheers,

Cay

[Campbell Ritchie]

Cay Horstmann wrote:. . . old editions never die, they just fade away into obscurity at Safari. . . .

I have a paper 6th edition at home.

I see what you mean about minutiae; they would confuse and annoy more readers than they would help.