“The Java landscape is littered with libraries, tools, and specifications. What’s been lacking is the expertise to fuse them into solutions to real-world problems. These patterns are the intellectual mortar for J2EE software construction.”
–John Vlissides, co-author of Design Patterns, the “Gang of Four” book

“The authors of Core J2EE Patterns have harvested a really useful set of patterns. They show how to apply these patterns and how to refactor your system to take advantage of them. It’s just like having a team of experts sitting at your side.”
–Grady Booch, Chief Scientist, Rational Software Corporation

“The authors do a great job describing useful patterns for application architectures. The section on refactoring is worth the price of the entire book!”
–Craig McClanahan, Struts Lead Architect and Specification Lead for JavaServer Faces

“Core J2EE Patterns is the gospel that should accompany every J2EE application server…Built upon the in-the-trenches expertise of its veteran architect authors, this volume unites the platform’s many technologies and APIs in a way that application architects can use, and provides insightful answers to the whys, whens, and hows of the J2EE platform.”
–Sean Neville, JRun Enterprise Architect, Macromedia

Developers often confuse learning the technology with learning to design with the technology. In this book, senior architects from the Sun Java Center share their cumulative design experience on Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technology.

The primary focus of the book is on patterns, best practices, design strategies, and proven solutions using the key J2EE technologies including JavaServer Pages(TM) (JSP(TM)), Servlets, Enterprise JavaBeans(TM) (EJB(TM)), and Java(TM) Message Service (JMS) APIs. The J2EE Pattern Catalog with 21 patterns and numerous strategies is presented to document and promote best practices for these technologies.

Core J2EE Patterns, Second Edition offers the following:

• J2EE Pattern Catalog with 21 patterns–fully revised and newly documented patterns providing proven solutions for enterprise applications
• Design strategies for the presentation tier, business tier, and integration tier
• Coverage of servlets, JSP, EJB, JMS, and Web Services
• J2EE technology bad practices
• Refactorings to improve existing designs using patterns
• Fully illustrated with UML diagrams
• Extensive sample code for patterns, strategies, and refactorings

J2EE has become required knowledge for any serious Java developer, but learning this large and complex specification requires a substantial investment of time and energy. Sams Teach Yourself J2EE in 21 Days, 2/E presents the enterprise Java architecture in accessible, easy-to-comprehend lessons, describing how each J2EE tool solves the challenges of n-Tier development. Using the architecture as a roadmap, chapters describe Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), JavaServer Pages (JSP), Java Servlets, and more, giving readers a full understanding of J2EE development.

Further chapters cover the role of XML, custom JSP tags, creating J2EE Web Services, and how Java Connectors allow J2EE applications to interact with legacy and non-Java systems. The book finishes with sample applications which put all the pieces together, including an example using J2EE to create Web Services. Along the way, every concept is illustrated with practical, real-world examples to ensure understanding by Java students as well as experts.

The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is an extremely powerful platform for developing enterprise-level Java-based applications, primarily for the server. This book shows you how to harness that power, examining how the pieces of the new J2EE 5 platform fit together.

This book surpasses explaining how to code a JSP or an EJB: It explains when and where to use these APIs, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and perhaps most importantly, how to employ the best practices for using them.

Hands-on tutorials are also included, along with clear explanations and working code examples. You will grow to take the next step—from writing client-side desktop applications to writing enterprise applications. You will also learn how to use the individual APIs and tools in the J2EE platform, and how to merge these to create your own enterprise applications.

What is this book about?

The results of using J2EE in practice are often disappointing: applications are often slow, unduly complex, and take too long to develop. Rod Johnson believes that the problem lies not in J2EE itself, but in that it is often used badly. Many J2EE publications advocate approaches that, while fine in theory, often fail in reality, or deliver no real business value.

Expert One-on-One: J2EE Design and Development aims to demystify J2EE development. Using a practical focus, it shows how to use J2EE technologies to reduce, rather than increase, complexity. Rod draws on his experience of designing successful high-volume J2EE applications and salvaging failing projects, as well as intimate knowledge of the J2EE specifications, to offer a real-world, how-to guide on how you too can make J2EE work in practice.

It will help you to solve common problems with J2EE and avoid the expensive mistakes often made in J2EE projects. It will guide you through the complexity of the J2EE services and APIs to enable you to build the simplest possible solution, on time and on budget. Rod takes a practical, pragmatic approach, questioning J2EE orthodoxy where it has failed to deliver results in practice and instead suggesting effective, proven approaches.

What does this book cover?

In this book, you will learn

• When to use a distributed architecture
• When and how to use EJB
• How to develop an efficient data access strategy
• How to design a clean and maintainable web interface
• How to design J2EE applications for performance

Who is this book for?

This book would be of value to most enterprise developers. Although some of the discussion (for example, on performance and scalability) would be most relevant to architects and lead developers, the practical focus would make it useful to anyone with some familiarity with J2EE. Because of the complete design-deployment coverage, a less advanced developer could work through the book along with a more introductory text, and successfully build and understand the sample application. This comprehensive coverage would also be useful to developers in smaller organisations, who might be called upon to fill several normally distinct roles.

What is special about this book?

Wondering what differentiates this book from others like it in the market? Take a look:

• It does not just discuss technology, but stress its practical application. The book is driven from the need to solve common tasks, rather than by the elements of J2EE.
• It discuss risks in J2EE development
• It takes the reader through the entire design, development and build process of a non-trivial application. This wouldn’t be compressed into one or two chapters, like the Java Pet Store, but would be a realistic example comparable to the complexity of applications readers would need to build.
• At each point in the design, alternative choices would be discussed. This would be important both where there’s a real problem with the obvious alternative, and where the obvious alternatives are perhaps equally valid.
• It emphasizes the use of OO design and design patterns in J2EE, without becoming a theoretical book

Now integrating Java 5 throughout, this reference introduces Java programming fundamentals – including problem-solving, object-oriented programming, GUI programming, data structures, networking, internationalization, advanced GUI programming, and Web programming. Includes many new illustrations. Enhances examples throughout, using small, simple, and stimulating examples to demonstrate concepts and techniques. Offers anearlier introduction to writing programs than the previous edition. Features a new chapter on recursion, expanding treatment from earlier editions. A useful reference for anyone interested in learning more about programming.

With more than 700,000 copies sold to date, Java in a Nutshell from O’Reilly is clearly the favorite resource amongst the legion of developers and programmers using Java technology. And now, with the release of the 5.0 version of Java, O’Reilly has given the book that defined the “in a Nutshell” category another impressive tune-up.

In this latest revision, readers will find Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition, does more than just cover the extensive changes implicit in 5.0, the newest version of Java. It’s undergone a complete makeover–in scope, size, and type of coverage–in order to more closely meet the needs of the modern Java programmer.

To wit, Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition now places less emphasis on coming to Java from C and C++, and adds more discussion on tools and frameworks. It also offers new code examples to illustrate the working of APIs, and, of course, extensive coverage of Java 5.0. But faithful readers take comfort: it still hasn’t lost any of its core elements that made it such a classic to begin with.

This handy reference gets right to the heart of the program with an accelerated introduction to the Java programming language and its key APIs–ideal for developers wishing to start writing code right away. And, as was the case in previous editions, Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition is once again chock-full of poignant tips, techniques, examples, and practical advice. For as long as Java has existed, Java in a Nutshell has helped developers maximize the capabilities of the program’s newest versions. And this latest edition is no different.

In this completely up-to-date volume, Herb Schildt, the world’s leading programming author, shows you everything you need to know to develop, compile, debug, and run Java applications and applets. You’ll get complete details on the Java language, its class libraries, and its development environment along with hundreds of examples and expert techniques.

From the Back Cover

Schildt’s classic Java reference–updated and expanded for J2SE 5. The ultimate resource for Java programming.

Java 2 Platform Standard Edition, version 5 (J2SE 5) is the most extensive upgrade to Java yet and Herb Schildt, the world’s leading programming author, has updated and expanded his best-selling reference on Java to cover it. Whether you’re a beginning Java programmer or an experienced pro, the answers to all your Java questions can be found in this one-stop resource. With expertly crafted explanations, insider tips, and hundreds of examples, this book fully explains the entire Java language and its core libraries. Of course, in-depth coverage of all the new features added by J2SE 5, such as generics, autoboxing, varargs, enumerations, metadata, and the enhanced for loop, is included. Essential for every Java programmer, this comprehensive resource offers the clear, crisp, uncompromising style that has made Herb Schildt the choice of millions worldwide. Coverage includes:

• Data types and operators
• Control statements
• Classes and objects
• Constructors and methods
• Interfaces and packages
• Method overloading and overriding
• Inheritance
• Exception handling
• Multithreading
• The I/O classes
• Networking
• The Collections Framework
• Applets and servlets
• AWT and layout managers
• JavaBeans and Swing

Plus, in-depth descriptions of Java’s newest features:

• Generics
• Autoboxing
• Enumerations
• Metadata (Annotations)
• The enhanced for loop
• Static import
• Varargs (variable-length arguments)
• The Formatter and Scanner classes.
• The Concurrent API

Herbert Schildt is the leading authority on Java, C, C++, and C#. His programming books have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide and have been translated into all major foreign languages. Find out more at HerbSchildt.com.

This practical guide shows you how to make your Java web applications more responsive and dynamic by incorporating new Ajaxian features, including suggestion lists, drag-and-drop, and more. Java developers can choose between many different ways of incorporating Ajax, from building JavaScript into your applications “by hand” to using the new Google Web Toolkit (GWT).

Ajax on Java starts with an introduction to Ajax, showing you how to write some basic applications that use client-side JavaScript to request information from a Java servlet and display it without doing a full page reload. It also presents several strategies for communicating between the client and the server, including sending raw data, and using XML or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for sending more complex collections of data.

The book then branches out into different approaches for incorporating Ajax, which include:

• The Prototype and script.aculo.us Javascript libraries, the Dojo and Rico libraries, and DWR
• Integrating Ajax into Java ServerPages (JSP) applications
• Using Ajax with Struts
• Integrating Ajax into Java ServerFaces (JSF) applications
• Using Google’s GWT, which offers a pure Java approach to developing web applications: your client-side components are written in Java, and compiled into HTML and JavaScript

Ajax gives web developers the ability to build applications that are more interactive, more dynamic, more exciting and enjoyable for your users. If you’re a Java developer and haven’t tried Ajax, but would like to get started, this book is essential. Your users will be grateful.