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There are books that do exactly what you are saying.
Java Tools for Extreme Programming (Covers Ant, JUnit, J2EE development issues AND was number one under Software Development on Amazon for three months this year).
and
Java Development with Ant (Cover XDoclet)
come to mind....

If your interested in XDoclet (as you stated) check out this FREE multipart tutorial series that covers XDoclet, Ant doing EJB Development. EJB with XDoclet Step by Step based on earlier tutorial that has WebLogic and JBoss examples with XDoclet http://www.rickhightower.com/ejbcmpcmrtut.html. Also, I wrote two chapters in the upcoming book that covers Struts, XDoclet and Ant on Tomcat
Mastering Tomcat Development from Wiley . I wrote the chapter on Struts and the chapter on Ant/XDoclet for the Tomcat book. The Struts chapter rewrites a model 1 JSP based application to be a model 2 based Struts application (it uses XDoclet). The Ant/XDoclet Chapter has examples of using XDoclet for Custom Tags, Struts, Servlets, EJBs and more.

The books you are asking for already exist.... These are but a few examples. I don't think having books on these topics excludes having a book on weblogic. The world is big enough for both.

"It is ... a pleasure to review ... books that are both original and useful. The first is Richard Hightower and Nicholas Lesiecki's Java Tools for Extreme Programming, which describes five new Open-Source Java programming tools... Java Tools is readable and well organized... As a bonus, the authors show how to use these tools together; for example, how to automate reexecution of JUnit tests using Ant." --Gregory V. Wilson (Dr Dobb's)

"This book is the first of its kind, covering topics that haven't been explored this directly anywhere. It does a remarkable job, covering not just the tools but the philosophy behind good unit tests and frequent, automated builds...." ... ... "The philosophy behind this material is modern and forward thinking. ... (The book has the ) potential to make you a better programmer and better able to deliver higher-quality code on a shorter timeline. " --Claude Duguay (JavaPro)

Check out the book web site for more details about the book. Java Tools for eXtreme Programming describes techniques for implementing the Extreme Programming practices of Automated Testing and Continuous Integration using Open Source tools, e.g., Ant, JUnit, HttpUnit, JMeter, and much more. This page contains review excerpts, links to the code, and a book description.

Check out the reviews in the U.S. Amazon. The book has been reviewed by XProgramming.com, JavaRanch, Dr. Dobbs, and Java Pro. All the reviews suggest that you should buy the book. :o) links to more reviews /a

Link to book web site

Java Tools for eXtreme Programming describes techniques for implementing the Extreme Programming practices of Automated Testing and Continuous Integration using Open Source tools, e.g., Ant, JUnit, HttpUnit, JMeter, and much more.

There are other great books that cover other aspects of Extreme Programming. This book focuses on Automated Testing and Continuous Integration.

The book does mention XP throughout, but does not cover all other practices of XP in detail. This book focuses on the mechanics of XP. Other books cover the philosophy of XP quite nicely and there was no need to repeat it in this book. There is an introduction to all aspects of XP, however, the focus is on Automated Testing and Continuous Integration.

The book contains small examples and tutorials on each tool. The examples cover building, deploying, and testing Java and J2EE applications.

In addition to small examples, there are larger case studies. The case studies are larger more realistic examples. We have case studies involving XSLT, EJB, Struts, JDBC, etc.

Each case study is complete with an ant build script and several tests, written with JUnit, HttpUnit, Cactus, JUnitPerf and/or JMeter. The case studies focus on building, deploying and testing J2EE applications with Ant and JUnit.

There is also a reference section for APIs. Instead of rehashing the API documentation, the reference section has example usage, i.e., code examples for the important classes and methods.

Although this book speaks from an XP perspective, you need not practice XP to benefit from it. For example, you do not have to adopt the entire XP methodology to get value out of this book. Automated testing, for example, can help you refactor code regardless of whether you are doing pair programming or not. Continuous integration can help you detect and fix problems early in the lifecycle of the system regardless of whether your customer is on site or not.

There are some really great books on XP. Three of my favorites are as follows:

Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck

Planning Extreme Programming by Kent Beck, Martin Fowler (favorite)

Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process by Scott W. Ambler

You will enjoy this book as it covers topics not covered in other books, i.e., essential topics that are critical to J2EE and Java development. This book is highly rated and is doing very well. If you are thinking about buying a copy check out these reviews reviews

Link to book web site

Java Tools for eXtreme Programming describes techniques for implementing the Extreme Programming practices of Automated Testing and Continuous Integration using Open Source tools, e.g., Ant, JUnit, HttpUnit, JMeter, and much more.

There are other great books that cover other aspects of Extreme Programming. This book focuses on Automated Testing and Continuous Integration.

The book does mention XP throughout, but does not cover all other practices of XP in detail. This book focuses on the mechanics of XP. Other books cover the philosophy of XP quite nicely and there was no need to repeat it in this book. There is an introduction to all aspects of XP, however, the focus is on Automated Testing and Continuous Integration.

The book contains small examples and tutorials on each tool. The examples cover building, deploying, and testing Java and J2EE applications.

In addition to small examples, there are larger case studies. The case studies are larger more realistic examples. We have case studies involving XSLT, EJB, Struts, JDBC, etc.

Each case study is complete with an ant build script and several tests, written with JUnit, HttpUnit, Cactus, JUnitPerf and/or JMeter. The case studies focus on building, deploying and testing J2EE applications with Ant and JUnit.

There is also a reference section for APIs. Instead of rehashing the API documentation, the reference section has example usage, i.e., code examples for the important classes and methods.

Although this book speaks from an XP perspective, you need not practice XP to benefit from it. For example, you do not have to adopt the entire XP methodology to get value out of this book. Automated testing, for example, can help you refactor code regardless of whether you are doing pair programming or not. Continuous integration can help you detect and fix problems early in the lifecycle of the system regardless of whether your customer is on site or not.

There are some really great books on XP. Three of my favorites are as follows:

Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck

Planning Extreme Programming by Kent Beck, Martin Fowler (favorite)

Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process by Scott W. Ambler

You will enjoy this book as it covers topics not covered in other books, i.e., essential topics that are critical to J2EE and Java development. This book is highly rated and is doing very well. If you are thinking about buying a copy check out these reviews reviews

The reviews for the book and comments on Amazon, TheServerSide.com, JavaRanch are very encouraging. Thank you all. And, thanks to SlashDot for reviewing the book on this forum...

I'd like to thank some other folks.

This book would not be possible without the great set of tools written for building and testing J2EE. I'd like to publicly thank James Duncan Davidson et al, Mike Clark, Vincent Massol et al, Kent Beck and Erich Gamma.

James Duncan Davidson et al created Ant. The de facto build tool for Java. This is the glue for building applications and making continuos integration doable with Java.

JUnit is the regression-testing framework written by Erich Gamma and Kent Beck. After looking at this code base you can see this framework screams with design patterns and solid OOP, and is central to Extreme Programming development with Java. It is as if these guys wrote *the definitive books* on Design Patterns and Extreme Programming--oh yeah they did!

Russell Gold wrote HttpUnit, which makes functional web applications easy and fun. (It can also be combined with Cactus.)

Mike Clark extended JUnit to provide JUnitPerf, which does load testing and performance testing. This code is an excellent example of how to extend JUnit. Mike Clark is also a really nice guy.

Vincent Massol et al for creating the Cactus (was J2EEUnit). I use this tool every day at work to unit test JSP Tags and EJBs. This is a truly novel tool. (BTW Nicholas Lesiecki, the co-author of the book, is an active committer on this project.)

Vincent Massol of Cactus contributed to the creation of the book. He reviewed the chapter on Cactus. His acknowledgement was accidentally omitted from the book during publication.

I am not implying that anyone mentioned above endorses the book or name dropping. I just wanted to thank them for contributing their time and effort to create these tools and then just give them away! Without them this book would not exist.

The book has been a bestseller under software development on Amazon most of this year. Thank you. We are blown away with the success of the book.

Check out these threads about the book if you get a chance....

Thread TheServerSide.com

Nick and I answered a lot of questions about the book at the JavaRanch as well...

Thread at JavaRanch
I've posted some more background information about the book here...

Book Web Site

I'll check back and try to answer any questions about the book. Thanks again.

The web site will soon have a sample chapter on it. Later, when we write the second edition, the book web site will have early drafts for review.

--Rick Hightower Co-Author of Java Tools for Extreme Programming

"(This book shows) The right, practical way to start up a xp java team...

The first part of the book is simply great, well written..., there's a lot of code ... The author divided the examples in a simple example (just to start to use the tools) and in a case study, to apply the practice in a real world project. In about 240 pages you will be able to use Ant, JUnit, HttpUnit, Cactus, JMeter, JUnitPerf, and if you are not an expert there is an intro about the j2ee deployment architecture too."

--Matteo Regazzi

Check out the full review at

http://www.hxp.it/english/libri/javatoolsforxp.htm l (English)

http://www.hxp.it/libri/javtoolsforxp.html(Italian )

"This book should appeal to XPers and non-XPers alike who recognize that automated testing and continuous integration are good things for any project." ... ... "The book is a good introduction for the uninitiated and a valuable reference for those plying their trade with these tools. Don't miss an opportunity to easily automate your Java project and spend more time delivering business value!"

--Mike Clark

Check out the full review athttp://www.xprogramming.com/xpmag/books200 20203.htm

"...This book is a fine introduction to a whole bunch of really useful tools to boost your Java and especially J2EE programming.... This book was almost too useful to review. ... If you want to get up to speed quickly and practically on a load of useful, powerful, tools - get this book. Everyone I've shown it to has wanted their own copy ... "

--Frank Carver

Check out the full review at http://www.javaranch.com/bunkhouse/bunkhouseDesign . sp

This review became book review of the month at JavaRanch!

This book is the first of its kind, covering topics that haven't been explored this directly anywhere. It does a remarkable job, covering not just the tools but the philosophy behind good unit tests and frequent, automated builds...." ... ... "The philosophy behind this material is modern and forward thinking. ... (The book has the ) potential to make you a better programmer and better able to deliver higher-quality code on a shorter timeline. "

--Claude Duguay

Check out the full review at http://www.fawcette.com/javapro/2002_04/magazine/d epartments/bookreviews/default.asp

"It is ... a pleasure to review ... books that are both original and useful. The first is Richard Hightower and Nicholas Lesiecki's Java Tools for Extreme Programming, which describes five new Open-Source Java programming tools... Java Tools is readable and well organized... As a bonus, the authors show how to use these tools together; for example, how to automate reexecution of JUnit tests using Ant."

--Gregory V. Wilson

Check out the full review at

http://www.ercb.com/ddj/2002/ddj.0205.html