What do YOU want from a WebSphere book?

[Kyle Brown]

Hi folks!
We're in the process of updating my book "Enterprise Java Programming with IBM WebSphere" for WebSphere 5.0. We're giving you a chance to give us some feedback -- what kind of topics would YOU like to see in a book on WebSphere 5.0? We're planning to cover all the basics like using WSAD, Installing WebSphere, deploying to WebSphere, using ANT with WebSphere, and including a ton of examples and best practices (like in the first edition) but what other topics would you like to see? Any new ideas?
Kyle

[Kartik Ruppa]

hi kyle,
'using VCE in WSAD 5.0' would be a topic that users will be interested to know aswell i think.Pls do include it.
thanks,
ruppa

[Johannes de Jong]

I think a chapter on building plugins might be nice and one on Junit too
Considering the fact that Websphere is a collection "name" for a lot of IBM technology a chapter on integrating IBM's different Websphere products i.e. IBM MQ, would be nice.
As an afterthought how about Struts ??
[ January 07, 2003: Message edited by: Johannes de Jong ]

[Kyle Brown]

Good suggestion on the integration chapter. We'll look into that. Struts is already a part of it -- so that's in.
About the VCE -- I just can't justify working that in. I'm afraid we're going to have to let someone else cover that.
Kyle

[JeanLouis Marechaux]

Hi Kyle,
I didn't read your first book but at first glance, it sounds like the table of contents does not cover the J2EE security.
When I ran into some security problem with WebSphere, it appeared the documentation was really poor on that subject , and sometime erroneous (the different timeouts, how to set them, how they work, how to use programmatic/declarative security with WAS ...).
So if it is not already included, a chapter about WebSphere security could help.
[ January 07, 2003: Message edited by: Bill Bailey ]

[Axel Janssen]

Hi Kyle,
here's my list.
critical discussion about ejb and alternative technologies.
When should one use entity beans.
When data access objects and jdbc is a better solution.
When stored procedure in database is better solution.
Webservices and when to use it.
Discussion about Websphere MQ.
Samples about using xml/xslt and maybe openSource solutions like cocoon.
Not easy to understand gotcha section like for example problems with 2 phase commit datasource (https://coderanch.com/t/72490/Websphere/Attn-kyle-resource-was-unable)
regards Axel

[Jim Sloey]

Migrating applications would be nice.
HA configurations and associated problems like putting a new version of code on a running server without disrupting the customer.
Scripts for rotating logs, extracting process IDs for monitoring etc.
Best ways to deploy plugin-cfg.xml and extracting static files (gif,pdf,css,js) for deployment to an external IHS web server on a separate machine.
Setting up SSL etc without the GUI (for those of us with systems behind firewalls).
Thanks
Jim

[Dave Teare]

Hi Kyle,
The documentation that IBM supplies with WAS is so poor, you could write a 8 inch book that covered everything!
But, that's besides the point! I would be interested in having the differences between WAS 4 and 5 highlighted. I have personally never seen a good document on database record locking; an explicit walk through of configuring CMP beans for optimistic locking would be grand (esp. when you highlight what this locking scheme really accomplishes. i.e. it is _server_ side optimistic locking, not user level).
Also, what the heck is this new version 5 datasource? An explanation on that would be nice.
Lastly, a walk through of command line development would be nice; like deploying ejb's, aat and wsadmin, all within a command prompt.
That's my wish list!
Cheers,
Dave.

[Kyle Brown]

WHooo hooo! (Pump arms and do a dilbert dance).
All of these things will be covered in spades. I'm actually writing the record locking optimistic/pessimistic bit as we speak.
And I'll throw in lots of other stuff I've discovered about WAS Entity bean mapping with multiple databases, too. This has been an interesting week in that regard (mapping complex CMP's to Oracle and discovering a ton of quirks...)
Kyle

[Johan Naudts]

It probably is a good idea to point out some bugs and pitfalls to avoid within WSAD and WebSphere 5...

[Subhash Namboodiri]

Hi Kyle,
Do you have a chapter in the book which deals with clustering. If possible have some sample examples and the required configuration for clustering.
Also some architecture related info - (From a client one can have a lookup with an InitialContext without parameters). So where does the port and the ip address info comes and also if there are multiple clusters running in the same network, whether any specific stteing are to made.
Subhash

[Bhiku Mhatre]

I fully agree with Bill Bailey about inclusion of insight on security .I too, had frustrating experience in securing web resources. It would be a great help as nowhere(in my search scope) these issues are handled properly. The information is too scattered in bits and pieces.

[Kyle Brown]

Actually, something we've considered (but havent' committed to) is doing a second book that covers administration (including clustering), security and deployment issues with ANT.
Would that work for you guys? One book on programming model issues, and a second on deployment?
Kyle

[Dave Teare]

This book sounds like its going to kick butt! Problem is, I needed it yesterday
When is the planned release? Do you need some "BETA" users to help you proof-read, test the examples, etc? Let me know...
-Dave.

[Subhash Namboodiri]

Hi kyle,
As long all the issues are covered I do not think it would be problem whether it is one book or two book. On a second thought it would be better to have two books - each focussed on certain topics.
Subhash

[vidyaB]

Can you add a chapter specially discussing inhertiance with WAS 5.0. In all i just found two articles on ibm discussing inheritance one by ahmed khalif other by you Kyle.They are all outdated , there is none for WAS 5.0.
VB

[vidyaB]

Also when i make a search on google i get many links from weblogic on any topic straight from there docs...When i do the same for websphere i do not get the same. Can IBM make Infocenter more open and easy to search kind of documentation.
Often its hard to read IBM docs from infocenter..
1) very small fonts
2) half of the screen gets covered with the frame.
(little things but they matter lot)
DOCS DOCS DOCS is all that we need from IBM...
VB

[Kyle Brown]

Inheritance we have covered -- one of my co-authors is working on that.
But how am I supposed to fix the IBM docs? That's an off-topic post...
Kyle

[Kyle Brown]

Believe it or not, you as a customer have MUCH more influence than I as an IBMer have. IBM is very much a customer-driven customer. If you dislike this, open a PMR on it -- submit a feature request as well. When you meet with your Software sales representative, complain about it pointedly. If many of you do this, these will have a significant effect on the product, much more so than my talking to the individual developers...
Kyle

[Johannes de Jong]

Would that work for you guys? One book on programming model issues, and a second on deployment?
Would work for me

[Sanjay Saxena]

Hi Kyle,
When should I expect this book to come in the market?
Thanks
Sanjay

[David O'Meara]

Originally posted by Johannes de Jong:
Would work for me

Me too.
Probably a part of the administration/deployment book, but session persistence would be handy.
Integration with LDAP (SecureWay presumably) for authentication would have been handy to us when we attempted it.
Also a big section on migration from 4 to 5. We had a stack of minor web and ejb related issues that took us months to solve when moving from 3 to 4.
Is there documentation on separating the web and app servers to different boxes? I'm happy it's not my resposibility, but we're not sure how to get that happening. We was also had a lot of trouble finding information on getting apps running https on port 443.
Nothing you need to solve in this thread, just suggestions for the book

[Awais Bajwa]

Already there are no of suggestions, here is one more : kindly include a topic on WSSAD debugging as this tool is famous for debugging ,for j2ee applications ,you may include remote debugging and integration of tomcat wiht WSSAD 5.0 .
Also tell me when you are goign to launch this book in the market.
Regards
AWAIS BAJWA

[Kyle Brown]

Debugging is of course included, but why would we want to talk about Tomcat? What use is it to debug against Tomcat when you already have the entire WebSphere Test Environment?
Kyle

[Awais Bajwa]

90% of the users working on WSSAD are come from Visual Age . And Test Environment is a known thing but tomcat was not available wiht Visual Age . Tomcat can be used commercially as its new version is very much improved ,may be that is the reason IBM included Tomcat in WSSAD apart from WS Test Environment .
So if Tomcat is built-in in WSSAD then there should be some topic how to integrate and work on it . So that we should know how can we use Tomcat and WebSphere together. But you are right in a sense that Tomcat can not be comparable with Giant Test Environment .. ok it will depend on you .. But plese write some lines for Open Sourse community if you can
Regards
Awais Bajwa
[ January 22, 2003: Message edited by: Awais Bajwa ]

[Abhilesh Khatri]

Originally posted by Kyle Brown:
Hi folks!
We're in the process of updating my book "Enterprise Java Programming with IBM WebSphere" for WebSphere 5.0. We're giving you a chance to give us some feedback -- what kind of topics would YOU like to see in a book on WebSphere 5.0? We're planning to cover all the basics like using WSAD, Installing WebSphere, deploying to WebSphere, using ANT with WebSphere, and including a ton of examples and best practices (like in the first edition) but what other topics would you like to see? Any new ideas?
Kyle

[Abhilesh Khatri]

Hi Kyle,
If you could elaborate on deployment mechanism i.e how to deploy a war/ear file created from wsad on websphere studio it will be of great help to readers. When i worked on this issue, i got very little literature on this front.
regards
venkatesh/abhilesh

Originally posted by Kyle Brown:
Hi folks!
We're in the process of updating my book "Enterprise Java Programming with IBM WebSphere" for WebSphere 5.0. We're giving you a chance to give us some feedback -- what kind of topics would YOU like to see in a book on WebSphere 5.0? We're planning to cover all the basics like using WSAD, Installing WebSphere, deploying to WebSphere, using ANT with WebSphere, and including a ton of examples and best practices (like in the first edition) but what other topics would you like to see? Any new ideas?
Kyle