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Apache Jakarta Commons
What's To Like
The book takes the reader on a journey through the Jakarta Commons. The Commons is like a massive utility library of Java code. Much of the code has been promoted out of the other Jakarta projects as it became more useful. One of the first such components was the Digester, which is a component to initialise a Java object from the contents of an XML configuration file. Very useful, originally from Struts and now used extensively by other Jakarta projects.
As the subject matter for a book, the Commons seems like a natural winner (I guess I have to say that!). There are so many components in the Commons that a guide to their types and usage does need to be available for developers.
Naturally, the book has a website to accompany it.
What's To ConsiderWhere to begin? I was actually surprised to find that I did not care for this book. The last review I wrote was for Mr. Iverson's very good Hibernate book. That was well written and structured. Unfortunately, this book feels kind of thrown together. The lack of care shows in the cramped layout and typesetting, the over-abundance of UML diagrams (a few here and there are great, but this felt like padding), code examples that can only be described as under-whelming and an approach that feels like an annotated telephone directory.
Despite the lack of quality of the primary chapters, they only actually account for the first 199 pages of the book. This is actually a very reasonable number of pages for a book, especially when you consider that classics like the first edition of Kernighan and Ritchie's "The C Programming Language" weighed in at about 220 pages. Sadly, the book then goes on for another 125 pages churning out what looks like repackaged JavaDoc for each of the major classes in the commons. You may like this, but it annoys the beans out of me and it'll reduce the score on one of my reviews faster than the Linux community can debunk a SCO IP infringement claim.
SummaryI really wanted to like this book. But it feels like someone was cranking the handle on a cash machine and thought that if they printed stuff about Jakarta, that the geeks would obediently buy it. Not this time. There are other books about the Jakarta Commons; buy one of those."
You could purchase Apache Jakarta Commons - Reusable Java Components from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
If you go through the Barnes & Noble link for the book, you'll find that the book costs $31.99 for the unwashed masses, and $28.79 for the "B&N members". What Barnes and Noble isn't telling their members is that they are still paying more than if they went to Amazon! Even with an associate laden link, you can still get the book off of Amazon for a mere $26.39! And no membership hassles to mess with!
From an Amazon review:
Note that this 325-page book is really a 201-page book. Appendix A is the entire API of the Commons lang project - word for word.
Am I the only one who gets annoyed at how computer books have devolved into hardcopies of auto-generated online documentation? Am I the only one who remembers books that cover the intangables of coding (e.g. theory of operation, correct methodology for usage, cool coding and hardware tricks, etc.) rather than the "instruction manual for dummies" books? Bah, I say! I don't know which is scarier: the current trend in books, or the fact that the review I'm citing gave the book 4 out of 5 stars.
Of course, I'll probably get in trouble with my fellow authors for saying this. (Sorry guys, but I just don't like 90% of the books being printed.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
....it's shite then?
This has to be among the worst booke reviews I have ever seen on Slashdot. And that's saying something. Most reviewers take the time to give you some detail. An indication of whether or not this book is for you. This just seems like a shameless whoring to get affiliate credit with B&N under the guise of a book review.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Stop reading it the minute you realize it's shit.
Next time, spend less effort writing about your own involvement and more time on that of the authors of the book.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Even with an associate laden link, you can still get the book off of Amazon for a mere $26.39! And no membership hassles to mess with!
Or you can use the non-associate link to prevent datadino's flagrant commission-whoring.
See parent post.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
:-)
I wrote a book on the Jakarta Commons - The Jakarta Commons Cookbook, and, from what I hear people like it. Really, you should read it, I tried to stay as far away from reference as possible and pack it full of useful recipes.
------ Tim O'Brien
Well, you're a bad troll and you've been modded down, isn't this what you wanted?
I think that's the first question any book like this would have to answer. Free and reasonably comprehensive documentation is included right along with all of these libraries. Why pay for anything more?
The answer is likely to be in tutorials or teaching narrative. I bought the OpenGL Guide for that to learn OpenGL because the API was a nasty maze to navigate otherwise. I don't think Jakarta Commons have that problem and I don't expect I'll be buying a book about them.
Start Running Better Polls
Do you apply the same criteria to blogs? I guess not, or you wouldn't have posted...
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This is like punch the monkey, Slashdot style.
Please mod down these peo--WHACK
Why don't you spend your mod poin--SMACK
Can't you see that you're all being very unreaso--POW
OMG WTF STOP IT YOU STUPID IDIO--THWACK
Call it a troll if you want, but this is what I really think.
1) Commons is way overrated. A lot of the code is not great if you dig into it, and generally the components solve very small problems. Often, you're better off doing it yourself than adding a volatile dependency to your project.
2) There are some worthwhile components in Commons, but that does not imply that that the same quality or usefulness can be assumed of the other components. Same goes for the rest of Jakarta. And the rest of ASF.
3) Those Commons components that are good seemingly get used by everybody, resulting in versioning conflicts between your various third-party libraries. Which is fun because the API's are unstable, and because the project maintainers sometimes fail to maintain either compatibility or mutual exclusion between releases. This happened with the Collections component.
4) Seriously, OP, you thought this would be a great book? What is there to offer in a book that's not online? And considering the instability of these packages, how long is that book going to be relevant?
And what does rating (4) mean? (4 out of what?)
What are the other books that are better? Why?
What is the "Jakarta Commons"? I know what it is, but you'd think the review will explain this briefly and then say how the book failed or succeding at explaining them.
I give this review a rating of "[".
- sigs are for wimps.
That may be OT, but FWIW, that was frickin funny. :+)
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Hear, Hear! All these moderator directives are getting annoying. If we don't attempt to stop it all we will see eventually is meta-comments.
It made it seem even shorter.
Guess what sort of paper the Declaration of Independence is written on.
:-P
Problem is, everyone knows that campaigners for the legalisation of hemp are really just potheads who want an excuse to smoke weed.
BTW, I just noticed your sig, and I hate to break it to you, but the Declaration of Independence is printed on veal.
I hope that ruined your day
I would just like to respond to the bit about "cash cow":
;)
1. The book itself is published under an open license - the material in the book will be available as a free electronic download in a few months.
2. Yes, the last 125 pages *is* (for all intents and purposes) the printed javadoc. This was included at the request of the publisher, and it is valuable for some people.
So... I don't know how negatively the review was influenced by the inclusion of the Apache material, but it is entirely above-board per the Apache license and essentially reciprocal - I'm giving the material in the book back to the community via a free license to download the material.
Oh, and as an FYI, book writing is hardly a cash cow - I only wish.
If folks have any questions (e.g. why the delay in making the electronic version available? What is the state of affairs for tech book publishing? Why aren't you rich writing books yet?) let me know...
Cheers & best wishes,
-Will Iverson
I'm glad you dont have javadocs. Its a cheap way to make a bad book.
more to the point, it dates so fast in the OSS world. Oreilly could get away with the original Java in a Nutshell book because the entire Java API was small enough to print, and because the API stayed frozen for two years.
but any living OSS project has an API that evolves weekly; and point releases every few months. printed documentation just doesnt cut it here. Instead books have to focus on why and how to use library, not what the APIs are.
I know that is actually harder, but the reader benefits, and so ultimately, the author and publisher.
-steve
(currently writing the second edition of Java Development with Ant)
Weren't the drug laws passed around the same time as the civil rights ammendment?
Aren't the overwhelming majority of people convicted on drug charges African American?
In many states convicted felons never regain the right to vote.
I am not putting on the tinfoil hat here, I'm just pointing out an interesting coincidence.
There are a lot of knowledgeble people here, I hope someone will point out a misconception or bad info (please).
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
I don't know why I kept thinking these laws were passed around the late 50's. Maybe, I'm thinking old jazz scene.
Of course, the Civil Rights Act was the one I meant.
thank you for the clarification
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
As represented by the poor number of responses.
Personally, I fell asleep half way through the summary.
-10 points for posting drivel.
And at about the same time, President Kennedy was assassinated! Well, that's enough proof for me; the banning of pot was clearly a plot to kill trees, keep Blackie down, and shoot the president!
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
Manning decided to publish my book in an online pdf format only, since Tim and the others beat me to the market. On the plus side, the book is available to read now, and you only need to buy the chapters that you are interested in rather than the whole book. The book *may* have future updates as well.
:) ).
I would appreciate if someone would do a review of it here. Since it is not sold on Amazon, I have only had very few feedback comments (all of them good
Regards, Vikram Goyal
Jakarta Commons Online Bookshelf: http://www.manning.com/goyal