<pre>
Author/s : David R. Heffelfinger
Publisher : Packt
Category : J2EE
Review by : Jesper de Jong
Rating : 9 horseshoes</pre>
GlassFish is Sun's open source
Java EE application server. It's the reference implementation for the Java EE standard. This book is about GlassFish version 2.
The book starts with a chapter about downloading, installing and configuring GlassFish, followed by nine chapters in which the major Java EE 5 technologies and APIs are explained:
servlets,
JSP, database connectivity using
JDBC and the Java Persistence API, JSTL,
JSF, JMS, security,
EJB and web services. Chapter 11 goes beyond Java EE and describes facelets, Ajax4jsf and Seam. Finally there are two appendices, about sending e-mail from Java EE applications and about
IDE integration (NetBeans and Eclipse).
The book is aimed at Java developers with some experience who want to learn Java EE using GlassFish. The book moves at a fast pace, and gives a good overview and some examples of each of the Java EE APIs. It's not a reference manual that describes the APIs into every detail. Because Java EE is so extensive and the book moves so quickly, I can imagine that it can be overwhelming if you've never seen Java EE before.
The book is really focused on Java EE programming, it does not cover setting up and configuring GlassFish in detail, nor does it cover advanced topics such as clustering and high availability.
I would recommend this book to Java developers who want to learn Java EE. It's a good introduction and gives you a good overview of what Java EE is and shows you by example how to program with Java EE. After this book, you'll want a reference manual that goes into all the details.
More info at Amazon.com More info at Amazon.co.uk