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Title: Java Extreme Programming Cookbook by Eric M. Burke, Brian M. Coyner ISBN: 0-596-00387-0 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: good information, but poorly organized
Comment: Java Extreme Programming Cookbook consists of a bunch of "recipes" for helping you to build and test Java programs through XP. Each recipe consists of a Problem, Solution, Discussion and a "See Also" pointer to where you can find more information about the topic. The recipes cover the following opensource technologies: Ant, JUnit, HTTPUnit, Mock Objects, Cactus, JUnitPerf and XDoclet.
Want define a classpath using Ant? Check out recipe 3.7. Wanna test a form in your web application? look at recipe 5.9. This book gives a bunch of good strategies to commonly encountered problems, but it's by no means a complete reference to the different technologies. But it will definitely get you started, and you'll be able to apply these different recipes to your own development environment.
The organization of the recipes and consistency between the chapters is where this book lost points in its rating. Want to know how to run JUnit with Ant? look in the Ant chapter. Want to know how to run HTTPUnit with Ant? Look in the HTTPUnit chapter. The Cactus chapter has a nice recipe about "When not to use Cactus" and the JUnitPerf chapter has a nice recipe about "When to use JUnitPerf" it would have been VERY helpful to have such sections for EACH technology discussed in the book, but alas the book is inconsistent.
Overall, I think this is a good book to jump-start you into an XP development environment using open source technologies.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great book if you remember to use it
Comment: This book covers a very similar selection of tools and techniques to "Java Tools for Extreme Programming" by Hightower and Lesiecki, and in a broadly similar way. Both use the currently fashionable idea of Extreme Programming (XP) to attract readers to a collection of short pieces about a bunch of useful tools for Java programming.
The XP stuff is covered quickly at the start, the meat of the book is in the "recipes", which walk you through configuring and using tools such as Ant, JUnit, Cactus etc. to build, unit-test and manage the development of a Java project.
The tools and tips the authors have chosen to include are a good representation of current practice, but I have a few reservations about the organization and structure of the book. My biggest worry is whether the target reader is actually likely to find many solutions. The authors seem to assume that everyone will pore over the several pages of "contents" at the front of the book every time they hit an obstacle, but in my experience they are just as likely to flip through pages or head for the index at the back, neither of which works particularly well. Worse than that, they may never think to look in the book in the first place - the "Extreme Programming" in the title may help it sell, but it's not something that jumps to mind when you are struggling to get Ant to deploy a web application to Tomcat.
That said, I'm glad I've got it, and some of the recipes now have little sticky notes to try and remind me that it's often an unexpectedly good place to look for Java development tips.
Rating: 5
Summary: More about the tools you need for Extreme Programming...
Comment: If you are starting out in the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology, you will quickly learn the importance of running continual builds and unit tests of your code. And if that process isn't easy and automated, realistically it won't get done. Fortunately, there are a number of open source tools out there that are commonly used to take care of this. The Java Extreme Programming Cookbook will help you understand what those tools are, how they are used, and how to solve some of your common problems with those tools.
This isn't a tutorial on XP. Instead, it concentrates on the tools you need to make XP work for you and become part of your normal development process. In some ways, a more accurate title for this book would be the Java Extreme Programming Tools Cookbook. The format provides a nice basic introduction to each tool, where you can download it from (as well as where to find the complete documentation), and then a number of problem/solution scenarios from basic install to more complex automation tools.
For instance, let's take one of the tools; JUnit. JUnit is a tool that does unit testing on your code. You define a test class as well as test cases that should either pass or fail. Once you have your test class and test cases set up, you can quickly test your code after making changes to make sure that all the results are still accurate. In XP methodology, you actually write your test cases first, and then write the code to make them pass. In that way, your testing drives your coding. This book will give you the overall information on what JUnit is, how to install it, and how to run it. You then run into a number of situations, such as running tests concurrently, repeating tests, testing naming conventions, and organizing tests into test suites. Using the problem/solution layout of the Cookbook series, it's very easy to get the base information you need to stay productive.
If you are brand new to XP or the tool set, you might be a little lost since it's not a "step-by-step" how-to of each tool. It assumes you either have a small amount of working knowledge, or that you'll supplement your knowledge with the tool's documentation. Still, you can't look up what you don't know, and this book made me aware of some tools I didn't know existed. An experienced user of these tools might also gain a few tricks that they didn't know about, and it might be worth it for those tricks alone.
For Websphere developers, you might find that a couple of these tools aren't necessary. For instance, Websphere Studio does your build for you, so Ant isn't as critical as it would be if you were running a J2EE server such as Tomcat. Also, JUnit integrates directly into Websphere Studio, so it's very easy to run that tool in your environment. Even so, having this book will help you expand your horizons.
Conclusion
If you are a Java developer using the XP methodology, get this book to learn the tools you need to make your build and testing process flow correctly. Even if you don't practice XP, the automated build and testing tools will help you to write better code.
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Title: Java Enterprise Best Practices by The O'Reilly Java Authors, Robert Eckstein ISBN: 0596003846 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Eclipse in Action: A Guide for the Java Developer by David Gallardo, Ed Burnette, Robert McGovern ISBN: 1930110960 Publisher: Manning Publications Company Pub. Date: 15 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
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Title: Java Performance Tuning (2nd Edition) by Jack Shirazi ISBN: 0596003773 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
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Title: Programming Jakarta Struts by Chuck Cavaness ISBN: 0596003285 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 13 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Java Data Objects by David Jordan, Craig Russell ISBN: 0596002769 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 22 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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