Book Description
I have bought 50+ java books and this is probably the only one that will survive the bookshelf. This book is to J2EE/Webservices what Kernigan and Ritchie is to C and Bjorn Stoustroup is to C++. Have a look at the code snippet on pages 138-139. It's terrible. I've let go of a couple of coders over the years on the basis of their poor coding practices, and this reminds me of their stuff. Yeah, I know... the thrust of the book is big-picture high-level architecture, so nit-picking on coding style may be missing the point, but in the design and architecture area as well, I'm seeing impressive-looking diagrams and hifalutin claims of superior insights that, on closer examination, reveal a disorganized and indiscrimate jumble. Right now, I'm inclined to return the book. This book might impress your managers, but it shouldn't impress you.
Reviews From AMAZON.COM
A Classic
Unlike the other java book Ray Lai blends the Enterprise Architect point of view with the technology. This is especially important in an organization such as the one I work for where java and webservices are new. I've cited Mr. Lai's section "Establishing a Business Case" and and the chapter "Web Services Architecture and Best Practices" in peer reviews and the subsequent white paper which I've written.
There's also something in the book for the code warriors. An unexpected gem from trying the coding examples was the discovery of sun/server included with the java webservices developers kit (JWSDP). This java server from Sun is the most lightweight and administrator friendly java server that is freely available. If you're simply wrapping a java class with webservices, you're repeating this on multiple computers/platforms and you are inside the firewall this is the perfect technology choice. Unlike other application servers like jboss, weblogic and websphere, it is lightweight (doesn't hog cpu bandwidth and memory) and administrator friendly (works with other apps and quick/easy to install).atrocious code

ISBN:0131014021