Rather than a simple update of the existing Professional Java Server Programming book, the J2EE edition represents an evolution of the content to reflect the changing state of server-side Java development. Whereas the first edition can be seen as an introduction to Java on the server, the new edition is a more tightly integrated vision of how to combine the Java technologies to develop n-tier applications in Java based primarily around J2EE. Since the release of the first edition in the fall of '99, probably the single most significant change in the Java server-side landscape has been the release of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Although we covered many of the elements of J2EE in the first edition of the book, many things have changed.
J2EE represents a serious attempt by Sun to make Java not just a viable language, but more importantly a viable platform for enterprise development. This book is about how to use Java for enterprise development, using the J2EE runtime architecture.
Wide range of technologies including: J2EE, RMI, JDBC, JNDI, LDAP, XML, XSLT, Servlets, JSP, EJB, JMS, JavaMail, CORBA, Performance, Scalability, Unit Testing, and Debugging
Benefits and limits of the typical real-world vendor implementations of the J2EE specification
The resulting practical aspects of real-word design using the J2EE technologies
Sun's Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) provides all the APIs needed to build world-class enterprise applications. Written by more than a dozen experts, the new edition of
Professional Java Server Programming provides a truly massive and authoritative guide to the latest standards and APIs available in J2EE. This title is a must-have for anyone serious about enterprise development in Java. Weighing in at over 1,400 pages,
Professional Java provides a wide-reaching resource of all the APIs required for J2EE development centring on servlets and JSPs for creating user interfaces and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), XML and JDBC for getting to data on the server. Besides a practical guide to how to combine these standards (with plenty of useful examples of these APIs in action), it also delivers a healthy dose of the design philosophy recommended by Sun for building scalable and robust enterprise Web applications.
Throughout, this text does a good job of merging theory with practice. Almost every chapter has a useful working example showing how APIs work, with sample code for such Web applications as an e-commerce shopping basket, tech-support pages, and a front end for a manufacturing database. The core of this volume is its treatment of servlets and JSPs for building Web-based front ends in Java. This new edition also highlights Enterprise JavaBeans in excellent detail, with a thorough tour of designing, programming and deploying EJBs effectively. (There's also notable coverage of the emerging EJB 2.0 standard, which adds several important features like a query language for more powerful database access).
The practical focus here is also reflected in chapters devoted to d debugging, testing and deploying J2EE applications--critical issues for a any aspiring enterprise developer. While it's true that no single book can make you an expert, this title can get you started with a superb tour of the APIs and technologies that you'll need to tackle large-scale development in Java. --Richard Dragan
