Codenotes for J2ee: Ejb, Jdbc, Jsp, and Servlets

by Gregory Brill

CodeNotes provides the most succinct, accurate, and speedy way for a developer to ramp up on a new technology or language. Unlike other programming books, CodeNotes drills down to the core aspects of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812991907
• ISBN13: 9780812991901
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Just Great! Suggest that publishers benchmark this series.

I think I was very lucky to have found this book while I was struggling to grasp the idea of what J2EE is all about reading a very thick book from another publisher. I am quite sure 3 days spent on reading this book was worth much more than over 10 days spent on getting lost while reading another one. How amazing it is that such a small book covers almost all the important aspects of J2EE (even design issues!). I can't wait for the new books in this series (such as C, C++, etc) to hit the market. Other publishers that are notorious for their verbose style in their books should learn some philosophy from this series and stop wasting the valuable time of the readers with enticing but practically unnecessary details.

The sample of a good-written IT book

There are a lot of thick IT volumes that give us examples of how NOT to write IT books. CodeNotes for J2EE is an opposite example. It is undestandable, precise and contains only sufficient information.

Small profile yet gets right to the point!

This book was a real pleasure to own. The book is small enough to fit in my notebook computer bag and contains essential reference information, so that I could write some prototype code within an hour or two. My leather computer bag now has an imprint of this book, which I don't mind because of the confidence it gives me to know it is available. The book covers all the essential information needed to install the J2SE, J2EE and TomCat environment in Windows. There was little more than references to installations for Solaris and Linux. Most folks with UNIX experence shouldn't have much problem setting up the environmental variables.An annoyance with this book is that Chapter 4 attempts to cover topics with JavaMail, RMI, COBRA, JNDI with little content. The chapter appears to be an aborted attempt since it is only 3 pages long. These topics should just be placed in a glossary.I am also really pleased with the publishers profile for this series of books. Most publishers of these books tend to go for quantity over concise reference material. This is a big relief compared to "Java for the Web with Servlets, JSP and EJB" which is 976 pages (a big 4 lb red brick).

Gets Right to the Point

I like this book very much because it gets right to the point. Sometimes when reading through massive programming books, I find myself wondering how relevant the current topic is. Is this really something that is widely used in the real world, or is this fluff? Every page of this book contains just the important stuff with no filler.The section on EJB may have even been a bit too consise. Enterprise Java Beans is a very complicated topic that is difficult to give a short summary of. Even so, it's nice to have a well-written book that explains how the whole of J2EE hangs together. (I have another book about EJB).I hope that smaller technical books become the trend. I'd much prefer a consise 250 pager over a 1000 page book that has no focus.

A Great Way To Understand J2EE

I've recently discovered the CodeNotes series, and have become a big fan. The admirable goal of these books are to give you a practical understanding of the subject in 200 pages or less. I've got 3 of these books, and find them all to be well-written, appropriately concise, yet filled with what's necessary to get you up to speed on the subject matter.This particular CodeNotes covers well the big topic of J2EE, the underlying API's, JDBC, JSP, and does a great job with EJB's. The treatment of these subjects is complete from a high level, but you'll have a good foundation when you drill down in a given area. I applaud these sorts of books making an inroad into the technical shelves. More often than not, I don't need a 1000 page technical epic that is a chore to both carry around and actually read. Also, because many of these books contain a CD that may or may not have any useful material, suddenly you've got a 15 pound reference monster ...!This book is a real value for the price, it gives you the information you need. The extra material, such as expanded coverage of technical specifics and web links, is handled on the CodeNotes website, so no "CD Included" surcharge.Nice coverage of the subject, from a happy reader not connected with CodeNotes at all. Just happy to promote the cause of succinct technical reference!