If you're up on the latest Java technologies, then you know that Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0 is the hottest news in Java this year. In fact, EJB 3.0 is being hailed as the new standard of server-side business logic programming. And O'Reilly's award-winning book on EJB has been refreshed just in time to capitalize on the technology's latest rise in popularity.

This fifth edition, written by Bill Burke and Richard Monson-Haefel, has been updated to capture the very latest need-to-know Java technologies in the same award-winning fashion that drove the success of the previous four strong-selling editions. Bill Burke, Chief Architect at JBoss, Inc., represents the company on the EJB 3.0 and Java EE 5 specification committees. Richard Monson-Haefel is one of the world's leading experts on Enterprise Java.

Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, 5th Edition is organized into two parts: the technical manuscript followed by the JBoss workbook. The technical manuscript explains what EJB is, how it works, and when to use it. The JBoss workbook provides step-by-step instructions for installing, configuring, and running the examples from the manuscript on the JBoss 4.0 Application Server.

Although EJB makes application development much simpler, it's still a complex and ambitious technology that requires a great deal of time to study and master. But now, thanks to Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, 5th Edition, you can overcome the complexities of EJBs and learn from hundreds of practical examples that are large enough to test key concepts but small enough to be taken apart and explained in the detail that you need. Now you can harness the complexity of EJB with just a single resource by your side.

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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