Justin, Mind if I post this to the website?
Cheers Niklas > -----Original Message----- > From: Justin MacCarthy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 3:30 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [ cf-dev ] review: Macromedia Reality ColdFusion MX / J2EE > > > Here is a quick review of my initial reading of > > Macromedia Reality ColdFusion MX / J2EE > by Ben Forta / Drew Falkman / Kristian Cibulskis / > Bonnie Plottner. > http://www.forta.com/books/0321129482 > > Any mistakes, omissions, mail me, I'll fix 'em. > > > What is it ? > -------------------- > > This book explores the use of J2EE and ColdFusion MX. It > describes the use > of EJB, JMS, Java Classes, XML with MX. This book is not for > beginners, a > decent understanding of J2EE, CFML, SQL, XML etc is required. > OO would be > helpful, but this book is a gentle introduction in itself. > > > Details > -------------------- > The applications described in this book are pretty good. Of > course they are > limited by size, to be an effective example, but the are > large enough to > explore ideas and concepts, and to explore various features > of MX and J2EE. > > The example applications are a Portal, an E-Commerce app, a > B2b project , a > CRM system and a Content site. > > > Each example project is spilt into 5 sections: > > Product requirements > Initial Thoughts > Development > Solution > Delivery > > Each of these sections, explores the developers process, at > each stage of > the application design. This is done though the eyes of the various > developers working on the application, and in that way explores the > different layers involved, the presentation layer, the > business layers and > the Data layer. > > > Interesting things discussed in this way: > > The Development process > Patterns > UML > Using the Jakarta Project and other open source projects > TAGlibs > JMS > Instant Messaging via Jabber > EJB and eb-sql (even CMP, BMP MDB) > CFC's > Deployment of mixed apps. > > The title is "Reality" CFMX, and this book lives up to the title. The > applications described present the same issues that real web > developers deal > with, day to day. Often books use example applications that suit the > language/platform that the book is targeting. Of course in > the real world, > life is not so easy. For example, in chapter 3, on building a B2B > application, they use EJB's to encapsulate some business > logic. However, > instead of just blindly using EJB's for everything, they > discuss a weakness > of EJB's; the speed of access to tabular, read-only data. So > they decide to > bypass the EJB for read-only operations, and instead > encapsulate those in a > CFC. This is kind of solution used in the "real world". It's > refreshing to > see it in a book. > > What I didn't like. > -------------------- > > This is the first Macromedia book I've read. It's the first > Ben Forta book > I've bought since the "CF Version 2 Construction Kit". > > The complaints I have are only about the layout/ style. I > didn't like the > recreation of the emails and memos, in a style to look like > emails & memos, > complete with notepad lines, tilted text etc. I'm more of an > O'Reilly type > guy myself. > > A couple of other things: > > No appendices - It would have been great to include a > section with book > recommendations, and resources. Especially, developer > versions or free J2EE > servers (http://java.sun.com), jBoss (www.jBoss.org), OpenJMS > (http://openjms.exolab.org/), Tomcat > (http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/) > etc.. A section on > setting up your development machine, installing MX & the > J2EE software, etc. would be helpful too. > > No labels on the code snippets - e.g. code 1.2 etc.. > > No mention of testing methods - (well ok a tiny bit about > "Road Testing" the > app) . - I can't blame the guys too much for this, as there > are not too many > tools available in this area for CF, but maybe a little about > using Cactus > (http://Jakarta.apache.org/cactus) /JUnit > (http://www.jUnit.org) to test > EJBs and possibly using ANT > (http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/index.html) for > automating the packaging and > deployment. > > > Conclusion > ------------------- > > I liked this book. It does a good job of exploring the use of > Java with > CFML. It would be a valuable addition to your (more > experienced) developers > bookshelves, and might inspire them to explore Java from MX, > and increase > their skills. > http://www.forta.com/books/0321129482 Well done guys! Justin -- ** Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev%40lists.cfdeveloper.co.uk/ To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For human help, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ** Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev%40lists.cfdeveloper.co.uk/ To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For human help, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
