A Java geek

This review is about Apache Maven 3 Cookbook from Srirangan from Packt Publishing.

Facts

1. 9 chapters, 208 pages, $35.99
2. This book covers Apache Maven 3

Pros

Each recipe is structured in 3 steps:

1. “Getting ready”
2. “How to do it”
3. “See also” for references on associated recipes

Cons

1. The scope of the book is too large for only 200 pages. It spans from Java to Scala and Groovy through Android, GWT and Flex.
2. Most products installation processes (Sonatype Nexus, Hudson) are documented with a few screenshots. It would have been better to reference the product installation on the Web or to go in detail. In the current state of thing, most readers are left wondering what to do with it.
3. The recipe structure is well adapted for… recipes. When talking about general Maven principles like compiling a project, it feels convoluted and artificial.
4. Writing a whole chapter about native Maven reporting when there’s Sonar? Come on…

Conclusion

I was expecting much from this book, because I’m a daily Maven user and because Maven is regularly misused (see here and here for a start). I’m sorry to say I’m disappointed: there’s not much regarding how to resolve daily Maven problems provided. The concept is a good idea but IMHO the result is a failure.

Disclaimer: I was provided the book freely, courtesy of Packt Publishing

Dear readers,

In order to celebrate the release of Apache Maven 3 Cookbook, Packt Publishing contacted me in order to hold a contest to grab a free copy of the eBook!

To be frank, I haven’t a clue toward organizing a contest so the first three who send me a mail at nicolas at frankel dot ch with the subject “Apache Maven 3 Cookbook” will be sent the eBook for free. Don’t waste your time: on your mark, ready, go!

And thanks Packt for these gifts.

Update[10h20]: Sorry folks, all three eBooks have already been given. Winners will be contacted shortly by a Packt representative. Thanks for participating!

My next book review will be on Spring Security 3 from Packt. I’ve heard of Spring Security since it was previously named Acegi Security but I hadn’t the chance to play with it. A book on the Spring Security model will let me dive into the subject, providing me with the means to see if it warrants further investigation on my part.

The shipment is on its way, the rest is on my shoulders!

This review is about Tomcat 6 Developer’s guide by Damodar Chetty from Packt Publishing.

Facts

1. 11 chapters, 395 pages, 44$99
2. This book covers how Tomcat works: Server,  Service, Connector, Valve, Pipeline, Engine, Host, Context, Wrapper and Manager won’t hold any secrets anymore
3. This book is intended for administrators that want to know how their product work and architects that need to bring additional functionnality into it

Pros

1. There’s not much details on Tomcat’s internals. The documentation on the site is enough for most uses, but sparse if one wants to really dive into the details. This book is a real wealth of information on how Tomcat really works.
2. Most of Tomcat’s oriented books talk about tuning or security. Very few detail how to create new components: this book is one of them
3. Before each explanation into a configuration element, the book takes the time to remind the pertinent stuff of the Servlet specifications and to link it with the following explanation

Cons

1. The information is raw and dense. Since drawings and schemas take another route into our brain, more graphical sources of explanation would have been an asset

Conclusion

This book is reference documentation when you need to go beyond adding a data source to your application. If you use Tomcat in production, chances are you need to go further than that, for example to manage sessions in a cluster. In this case, Tomcat 6 developer’s guide will be a real asset.

This review is about Spring Persistence with Hibernate by Ahmad Reza Seddighi from Packt Publishing.

Facts

1. 15 chapters, 441 pages, 38€99
2. This book is intended for beginners but more experienced developers can learn a thing or two
3. This book covers Hibernate and Spring in relation to persistence

Pros

1. The scope of this book is what makes it very interesting. Many books talk about Hibernate and many talk about Spring. Yet, I do not know of many which talk about the use of both in relation to persistence. Explaining Hibernate without describing the transactional side is pointless
2. The book is well detailed, taking you by the hand from the bottom to reach a good level of knowledge on the subject
3. It explains plain AOP, then Spring proxies before heading to the transactional stuff

Cons

1. The book is about Hibernate but I would have liked to see a more tight integration with JPA. It is only described as an another way to configure the mappings
2. Nowadays, I think Hibernate XML configuration is becoming obsolete. The book views XML as the main way of configuration, annotations being secondary
3. Some subjects are not documented: for some, that’s not too important (like Hibernate custom SQL operations), for others, that’s a real loss (like the @Transactional Spring annotation)

Conclusion

Despite some minor flaws, Spring Persistence with Hibernate let you go head first into the very complex sujbect of Hibernate. I think that Hibernate has a very low entry ticket, and you can be more productive with it very quickly. On the downside, mistakes will cost you much more than with old plain JDBC. This book serves you Hibernate and Spring concepts on a platter, so you will make less mistakes.

This review is about Sonatype’s Maven: The complete reference by Tim O’Brien, John Casey, Brian Fox, Jason Van Zyl, Eric Redmond and Larry Shatzer.

Disclaimer: I learned Maven from Sonatype’s site 3 years ago. I found it was a great tool to learn Maven. Now that I have a little more experience in the tool, I tried to write this review in an objective manner.

Facts

1. 13 chapters, 267 pages, free (see below)
2. This book is intended for both readers who wants to learn Maven from scratch and for readers who need to look for a quick help on an obscure feature
3. A whole chapter is dedicated to the Maven assembly plugin
4. Another chapter is dedicated to Flexmojos, a Sonatype plugin to manage Flex projects

Pros

1. First of all, this book is 100% free to view and to download. This is rare enough to be state!
2. Complete reference books are sometimes a mere paraphrase of a product’s documentation. This one is not. I do not claim I’m a Maven expert but I did learn things in here
3. This book is up-to-date with Maven 2.2. For example, it explains password encryption (available since Maven 2.1.0) or how to configure plugins called from the command line differently using default-cli (since Maven 2.2.0)
4. A very interesting point is a list of some (all?) JEE API released by the Geronimo project and referenced by groupId and artifactId. If you frown because the point is lost on you, just try using classes from activation.jar (javax.activation:activation): you’ll never be able to let Maven download it for you since it is not available in the first place for licensing reasons. Having an alternative from Geronimo is good, knowing what is available thanks to the book is better

Cons

To be frank, I only found a problem with Maven: The complete reference. Although a whole chapter is written on the Maven Assembly plugin, I understood nothing from it… The rest of the book is crystal clear, this chapter only obfuscated the few things I thought I knew about the plugin.

Conclusion

This book is top quality and free: what can I say? If you’re a beginner in Maven, you’ll find a real stable base to learn from. If you need to update your knowledge, you will find a wealth of information. If you’re a Maven guru, please contribute to the Assembly plugin’s chapter. I can only give a warm thank you for Sonatype’s effort for giving this quality book to the community.

This review is about Packt’s Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation by Maria Odea Ching and Brett Porter.

Facts

1. 12 chapters, 436 pages, 39.99$
2. This book is intended for people that already have a good experience of Maven. The ‘About Maven’ part is as small as it can get, it is the opposite of what could be ‘Maven for Dummies’, where you learn to type mvn something.
3. A good portion of the book is about tools that are part of the Maven ecosystem: Continuum for the CI part and Archiva for the repository part.
4. A chapter is dedicated to testing, which test to pass automatically, what frameworks to use and how to configure the whole lot.

Pros

1. People that wrote the book really know Maven intimately and it shows. I’m not a newbie myself and I learned some things that I have put to good use since then (or intend to in the near future).
2. There’s an interesting multi-module structure described that is designed for big projects. It shows Maven structure can be quite adaptable and module design should be custom tailored to each project’s needs. A module for each layer / artifact is only the first step.
3. The part about Maven plugins is very interesting. Since Maven adopts a plugin architecture, knowing what plugins can do what, why and how to use it is invaluable.
4. So is the part about testing: a good idea is that some tests should not be passed everytime, but instead launched manually or attached to a specific module.

Cons

1. The tools used are Continuum and Archiva but there’s no justification for this choice. One could think that’s because they’re both Apache but that’s just not enough. Java.net’s Hudson seems the most used CI server and Sonatype’s Nexus is the reference for Maven repositories (although I have a soft spot for JFrog’s Artifactory).
2. What I regret most is the part taken by reporting. My personal stance on this is that only very few organizations use these features, mainly Open Source organizations. Since you now have products such as Sonar, describing in detail how to configure Maven reporting is a waste of time. Since the book is already oriented toward tools, why doesn’t it just teach how to use Sonar (since it cites Sonar anyway)?

Conclusion

All in all, Apache Maven 2 Effective implementation is not a great book but rather a good book to have when you already worked with Maven so as to stand back a little and build your projects more effectively with Maven in the future.

I was contacted last week by Packt Publishing. They made me the following offer: I was to choose the books I wished in their catalog and then write an article for each of them.

I gave this offer much thought and finally said yes on the condition I was to be free to say what I really thought about the book. Since I’m not known for my soft stances on many subjects, I’m really looking forward to write my first article; first, to evaluate the book’s material in itself and second, to see whether Packt will really play the game.

I’m expecting the delivery of 2 books right now:

• Flex 3 with Java
• Apache Maven 2 Effective Implementation

So expect to see these book reviews in a couple of months. I promise to really speak my mind, whether good or bad and to be straight (but fair). Ok, this may sound exaggerated but I’m really serious about it. Since I happened to stumble upon a PDF chapter of the Maven’s book some time back, and found very interesting plugins in it I did not know about, I have very high expectations. I also am currently writing my first Flex front-end so these two themes are dear to me.

I was asked to put free chapters for each book for download so here they are:

If you have something to say about this new orientation, please do so.