Database Programming with JDBC and Java
By George Reese
Published by O'Reilly
ISBN 1565926161
Reviewed by Larry Hess-HuNTUG member

This book is more of a sales pitch for Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) than anything else. The first 3 chapter keep trying to sell the reader on why you should use JDBC not how to use it as the title indicates. Maybe if I was a Java program I would have gotten more out of the book also I like to get to the meat of a function I don't need to be sold. I believe the function should sell itself if it works. Another problem with the book is, it is limited to only examples in C#, and I think examples should be in both C and VB.Net to ensure helping more programmers.

After the slow start and the limited examples the book did a good job explaining how JDBC would work. I found the chapter 10 The User Interface was the best read and most important to me. Overall the book went into detail on how to use JDBC and I think if I was a C programmer I would have gotten more out of the book.

For a non-java programmer the book is hard to read and understand and limiting the samples to C# also limits the readers understanding. To the authors credit he does state: "If .... have studied JAVA, this book will help you become a more effective application developer for JAVA database programs."

I would give this book a rating of 2 out of 5.

The text covers JDBC with enough depth, without burdening the reader with useless details available in any reference (in fact the reference is attached in an appendix, so there is no need to go looking online). Unlike other books it doesn't bore the reader with introduction to obvious concepts and examples. I highly recommend this for experienced professionals who need to understand and start using JDBC.
The book also gives a great in-depth explanation of multitier applications and some aspects of EJB. The author develops a framework which can be used both as EJB replacement for simple projects or as a explanation for how EJB operates.
In a word, great read, even four years after it was published.

This book starts strong, clearly elucidating the simple mechanics behind opening database connections and controling content updates through sql statements. It quickly drifts into something of a rambling however as the author attempts to cover too much ground in too short a span. Reese jumps from a slow introduction to JDBC and a gentle explanation of how to integrate database calls into simple applications to a mess of complex design patterns and ugly (I mean UGLY... where are his editors) code almost completely bereft of any helpful comments.

It almost seems as if the author started with the noble idea of advancing both the basic and more extensible uses of the API and then gets bored (or drunk) half-way through. The book just drops off a cliff when it gets to the 7th chapter.

The biggest crime however is that the text only devots a cursory page and a half to the high subject of Connection Pooling despite declaring (correctly) that it is absolutely essential to any successful JDBC deployment. Where does the author suggest we find information related to this topic, in a book dedicated to the discussion of Swing??

Look elsewhere... this text is under-edited, under-written and over-priced for the amount of useful information it contains; terribly dissapointing!

I'm a Java Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform. I bought this book to begin learning additional APIs. The preface claimed that only a basic knowledge of Java and some understanding of SQL was required. The book was not as advertised. Yes, the book did cover basic and advanced JDBC in two very short chapters, and provided a summary of the features of JDBC Optional Package without giving any details in a third. After reading these chapters I feel I have had an introduction to the subject, but no real depth.

The rest of the book takes off into very difficult Java topics (RMI, JNDI, EJB, Java Patterns, Distributed Architectures, Persistence, Swing...)proportedly to demonstrate how JDBC is used in the "real world." From time to time I was actually able to understand some of it, most of the time not. The author did not provide a high level introduction to these topics, which I would have found useful. Rather, the author jumped into the bowels of these subjects in a page or two. The language the author uses is often very exacting such as one might expect to find in a specification. The exacting language and limited number of illustrations caused me to have to re-read many sections several times often to remain confused.

The majority of this book was way too ambitious for someone with the background the Prefaces the reader should have. This book may be very useful for a reader with a more advanced background. After I have read several other books covering the "unadvertised-bonus" topics which comprise most of this book more slowly, I will try to read it again.

The first section of the book provided a rapid overview of using JDBC. Many topics, such as establishing the actual database connection (a relatively obscure process as every database vendor writes their JDBC connection class differently) were skimmed over without nearly enough detail. It was useful enough to get a start using JDBC, but little else.

The second part of the book was called "Applied JDBC". I don't think so. The examples were weak and poorly explained. Part of the reason I bought the book was it claimed it detailed "Developing Multi-Tier Applications". There were 5 pages on a writing a 3 tier application. The text only covered enough of each topic to leave you scratching your head wondering about the actual details.

The last section was a reference to JDBC APIs, which you could find online. Most likely already out of date and obviously a filler to turn what should have been a 100 page book into a 300 page book.

Usually I swear by O'Reilly books, but it was hard to justify the expenditure for this one.