The new 2.1 version of the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) spec extends its support for web services and the Java Web Services APIs, expands its asynchronous messaging support, adds XML Schema for deployment descriptors, and introduces a new Timer service, which allows for scheduling EJB jobs. The essential--and award winning--book on EJBs, Enterprise JavaBeans, has been completely revised and updated in this new fourth edition, to provide the real-world, nitty-gritty detail developers need to master EJB 2.1. Previous editions of this clear and engaging introduction to EJBs were voted the "Best Java Book" by the editors and readers of Java Developer's Journal, the "Best Java Book for Experts," by JavaPro editors, and one of the Top Computer Books by Amazon.com. The fourth edition lives up to--and surpasses--the excellent reputation earned by its predecessors. This authoritative and thorough guide includes everything that made previous editions the single must-have book for EJB developers: the authors solid grasp on the complexities of EJBs coupled with his succinct, easy-to-follow style; hundreds of clear, practical examples; adept coverage the key concepts EJBs ; and diagrams to illustrate the concepts presented. It also includes everything you need to get up to speed quickly on the changes wrought by EJB version 2.1, an architecture overview, information on resource management and primary services, design strategies, and XML deployment descriptors. In this edition, we're adding an EJB workbook for JBoss 4.0. The workbook shows how to deploy all of the examples on the JBoss 4.0 application server. It addresses an important problem with EJB: deploying the software on a server can be extremely difficult. JBoss is an open source project that has become the most widely used J2EE application server. Good technical authors may lay the facts before you, but great ones offer the distilled essence of their own experience and insight. Richard Monson-Haefel has provided just what Java developers need to know to harness the complexity of EJBs. What makes Monson-Haefel a master of technical authoring can be seen in his well-thought-out and logical progression of ideas, and in his examples practical, precise, usable examples, large enough to test key concepts but still small enough to be comprehensible taken apart and explained in the detail you need to deploy those principles in other situations. If you work with EJBs--or want to--this book will earn a favored spot on your bookshelf.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 139 Ratings

A very frustrating read... Big disappointment - 2009-06-05
Reviewer Rating:
I didn't count'em, but there's like 50 mistakes in the example code
very unprofessional
apart from that, the book is ok
it's a shame though
because I paid good money for it and
I would expect someone to revise the code thoroughly before going to print
after all... it's a programming book!
If you buy this book, don't expect a masterpiece

----------------------------------------------------

In regards to the technical errors...
halfway through the book, it was disappointing
then they're annoying,
by the end of the book it was just sad


I'll give just one of many examples, just to illustrate:

"Only session beans and message-driven beans that define
a javax.ejb.TransactionManagementType of Bean
using the @javax.ejb.TransactionManager annotation
can manage their own transactions."

... later in that same page (388):

[...]
...you won't know which is which unless you go to the API!
Like I said, it's just disappointing, annoying and sad.


It was around chapter 17, when I started wondering:
"Where this guys drinking while they were reviewing the code?"

Mistakes in the last chapter were just plain insulting:
"Figure 21-7. Stateless version of ReservationManager"
is the stateful version! Jesus Christ!
Who edited this book!

Not even the index got away clean (p. 708):
"builing and deplying example programs, 538"

and this is O'Reilly

Everything EJB - 2008-08-29
Reviewer Rating:
This book covers almost everything related to EJBs in their new reincarnation. Its author have rightfully chosen to scrap any information concerning EJB 2.1. This is the right path to take as the new 3.X standard is so radically different (read much more useful) from the earlier versions.

The book starts out with a fairly detailed introduction to JPA 1.0 persistence mappings, entity relations and inheritance. It then moves on to covering session beans, interceptors, JAX-WS/RPC, the JNDI ENC and JTA.

This is a massive amount of stuff and still the author manages to convey its primary use, pitfalls and corner cases in an engaging technical style. So from a topical point of view you get what you pay for (and then some). The book is however not without some problems. First of all it contains some annoying errors, like:

1) In the interceptor chapter, the author fails to inform you that EJB interceptors are only used on direct invocations. That is if you put a interceptor on EJB A and inject it into EJB B, then delegated method invocations on EJB A from B are not intercepted. This is annoying at best, and at worst it could be considered an enormous flaw in the EJB spec.

2) Some JPA information is just plain wrong (like the use of named parameters in native queries). Most of these errors can be traced back to the fact that the author uses Hibernate which indeed supports this non-standard functionality. While understandable, it does confuse you some when confronted with strange errors in other containers

Many other errors exists and this book badly needs a review from some of the other EJB/JPA spec members, preferably someone not involved with the JBoss container. Another and more grave problem is the fact that the book presents most technologies as separate entities, and thereby you fail to see the complete picture. I really miss a complete real life EJB applications including:

1) Security (propagation of client role to the server (i.e. getCallerPrincipal)).
2) Interceptors (for logging and security).
3) Use of EJBs from a web application.
4) Testing of EJBs (best practices for easy unit testing).
5) Packaging and compiling (these days you cannot write a JEE book without a complete Maven sample)

This might sound like allot of grief, but I still choose to give the book four stars from the simple fact that it is complete, contains allot of useful samples (like the .NET SOAP application client) and manages to make many hard topics easy to understand.

In general a well written and useful book with a heap of information, written in a pragmatic style without to much fluff.

Good reference book .. Not for learning the basics - 2008-09-30
Reviewer Rating:
I started reading this book with a basic understanding of EJB 3.0. But the book does not keep you interested in the topic. I found the reference manual more interesting. I use this as a reference book.

Is Good but Quality down in the code - 2008-03-31
Reviewer Rating:
I recommend this book. The book cover almost topics in EJB 3.0 and you can depend it for preparing the SCBCD 5. The author explain and describe the topics in easy way.

The problem of this book have more error in code I escalation it for author. cause the book have his name not auditor name.

I will give this book three stars for losing the quality.

Great EJB3 Book! You will be greatly pleased with your purchase. - 2008-06-28
Reviewer Rating:
This is a great introduction to EJBs in general, and now EJB3. (the JSR 220 standard) Just like EJBs are now easier to develop with version 3, so is it easy to read and study this book. I hold O'Reilly in a high regard, (doesn't mean I'm a fan boy though, they do have their share of bad apples) and their high standards show in the quality of writing in this book. You will be happy with your purchase.

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