Developing J2EE Applications with WebSphere Studio by Howard Kushner

[Book Review Team]

<pre>Author/s : Howard Kushner
Publisher : MC Press, LLC
Category : J2EE
Review by : Thomas Paul
Rating : 8 horseshoes</pre>
This book is written to serve two goals. First, it is a guide for anyone using WebSphere Studio to develop enterprise applications. Second, it is a study guide for those intending on taking IBM Certification Test 287. Due to the dual nature of these goals there may be certain parts of the book that someone studying for the certification test is already familiar with especially when it comes to knowledge of the basics of WebSphere Studio. However, the excellent coverage of the test objectives makes this a minor issue.
For the person looking for a guide to enterprise development using WebSphere, this book will get them quickly up to speed. The various pieces of J2EE are explained briefly while how they are programmed using WebSphere Studio is very well explained. The book does not serve as a complete primer on Servlets, JSPs, EJBs, etc but it does serve as an excellent guide to programming these in WebSphere Studio and installing them in WebSphere Application Server. For the person looking to study for the IBM certification exam, they will find an excellent guide that clearly identifies each objective of the test and points to which chapter covers which objectives. The one thing missing however is sample test questions. Although some sample questions are available on the IBM web site, additional questions and study advice would have been helpful.
Overall, I can recommend this book for either those using WebSphere Studio for development or those intending on taking the certification exam.


More info at Amazon.com
More info at Amazon.co.uk

[Howard Kushner]

Hello All,
You can now view the preface, table of contents, and full index of this book on the Web by using the links listed below:

Preface

Table of Contents

Index

Feedback is welcome. I have been considering asking my publisher to put an actual chapter on the Web. Please look at the Table of Contents and let me know which chapter you would like to see.
[ November 30, 2003: Message edited by: Howard Kushner ]

[Alan Ford]

I would recommend chapter 2 because :
It is basic enough for all to understand.
It probably gives idea how good book is.
It is not in middle of the book so we can learn something while we are waiting for book to arrives.
I would sugest making a set of practice questions. I am not sure why you
didn't do that. The way K&B do it is way to go (except they should have questions in PDF format instead some cromy testing tool that publisher pushes). However thair book has about 300 questions and when I did that I
was really confident that I will pass (only grade was the question).
Thanks for making this book for us.

[Howard Kushner]

Alan Ford: I would recommend chapter 2 because :
It is basic enough for all to understand.
It probably gives idea how good book is.
It is not in middle of the book so we can learn something while we are waiting for book to arrives.

I must confess that I am tempted by your suggestion. Let's see what others others have to say.

I would sugest making a set of practice questions. I am not sure why you didn't do that.

This is a more delicate subject. IBM specifically requested that we not provide practice questions. They were quite insistent that we refer the reader to the IBM Web site for pre-assessment/sample questions. We were tasked with writing end of chapter review questions targeted specifically for graduate level students, and not for the candidate seeking certification. Because of this, our academic reviewer was assigned the responsibility of writing those review questions, which helped reduce the burden on the authors. Meanwhile, the authors and technical reviewers were doing their utmost just to get the chapters written and edited, and I, as project manager and editor, had to make sure that (1) we stayed as close as possible to the original production schedule, (2) all certification objectives were properly covered, and (3) the overall flow of the book followed my original vision. Needless to say, the test became available in April and it took us until July to complete the manuscript. Then we had to go through all kinds of production work including copyedit, layout, getting the right figures matching the right captions in the right chapters. Finally in August it began to ship and I held a copy in my hands for the first time! I had no idea how much work would be involved in writing a book. I hope that I have learned something from this experience, but when I start the next book I expect to find an entirely new collection of stumbling blocks that I missed the first time around.

Thanks for making this book for us.

You are quite welcome. It is indeed my pleasure to help.
[ November 30, 2003: Message edited by: Howard Kushner ]

[Johannes de Jong]

Hmm the book seems worth getting for our dept.

[Axel Janssen]

I am currently reading this book.
Think it provides a good refreshment on all those servlet, jsp, ejb, j2ee sec, transactions, Webspere tools for deployment, dev, debug, etc.
Mentioned above, its by no means kind of a primer. If it were a primer, it would have much more than 600 pages. Books with over 600 pages in my opinion are reference manuals but no traditional books (start reading at first page, end reading at last page).

Like any good certification book it concentrates on the tricky points of the apis and specs. The team-members up to chapter 5 (haven't read the rest) chose a very clear and concise language to explain the subtle points.
Axel
[ December 03, 2003: Message edited by: Axel Janssen ]

[Thomas Paul]

I should add that even though the book has multiple authors it does not read like one of those huge Wrox books with constant repetition because one author had no idea what the other authors were writing. The book is well edited with little or no repetition. There is a consistent style throughout the book so that it reads as if it was written by one person. Good job, Howard!

[Book Review Team]

<pre>Author/s : Howard Kushner et al
Publisher : MC Press
Category : J2EE
Review by : Simon Brown
Rating : 8 horseshoes</pre>
Developing J2EE Applications with Websphere Studio is targeted at two types of readers -- those that are studying for the IBM certification (test 287) and those that are building J2EE applications with WSAD. Since I've not taken the certification, I can't comment upon how useful it is for the former. However, the certification objectives are presented well and there are test yourself sections at the end of each chapter so that you can recap what you have learnt. Each chapter seems to cover the exam objectives in some depth so everything you need to know for the test should be in the book.
From my perspective, I've read the book as somebody that has built J2EE applications before, albeit not using the IBM product set - I was fairly new to WebSphere Application Server (WAS) and WebSphere Studio (WSAD). In terms of the content, the book seems to have pretty much everything covered - from JSPs, Servlets and EJBs to J2EE clients, JCA, packaging and application profiling. There's undoubtedly something in here for everybody and the range of topics is impressive, with the second half of the book going into great amounts of detail.
There are a couple of things that I didn't like about the book though. The first of these is that it does feel slightly disjointed in places, partially due to the number of authors but also because the levels of detail vary from chapter to chapter. The second is that there sometimes doesn't seem to be much information about WSAD, although this isn't the case towards the end of the book. Essentially the authors have done a great job in covering many of the technologies, techniques and tools used in building J2EE applications, particularly as this is such a huge area.
At 600+ pages, it's a fairly hefty book and this is reflected in the price, although you do get a CD-ROM. Overall, this book has some excellent information and if you are new to WAS and WSAD then it comes recommended. For me, I'd like to see the book split because there are two really great books waiting to get out -- one on the certification and one purely focused on using WSAD, helping readers to use the tool in their day to day work.


More info at Amazon.com
More info at Amazon.co.uk