Ajit Sagar

This was actually the first book on Enterprise JavaBeans that came into the market. Enterprise JavaBeans was released in June and made its debut at JavaOne this year. This is a pretty good book for developers who like to see a lot of code. The examples in the book are used to develop a fairly complex application and the code isn't meant for novices. Tom Valesky presents many examples. I like the fact that the book takes an example and builds its complexity in successive chapters. There's good coverage of distributed architectures and transactions. The author has also dedicated a chapter to provide some excellent guidelines for building distributed systems. For readers just starting out in distributed applications, the author provides the appropriate background. This book isn't for everyone, though. Readers already familiar with distributed systems and transactions m... (more)

Welcome to XML

I have to agree with JDJ's editor-in-chief, Sean Rhody. The word XML seems to spark technological fires. The JavaOne Conference issue of JDJ (Vol. 4, issue 6) featured three articles on XML. Having written one of them, I share the experience of the flood of e-mails regarding this obviously hot and controversial topic. Aside from the folks who actually read what I write, others who have little clue about programming have asked me what XML is. As Sean mentioned, at JDJ we've been tossing e-mails back and forth about XML, where it is today, what it may mean and what role SYS-CON Pub... (more)

Architecting For SOA

The term "architecture group" is a heavily loaded one. I've run into different scenarios at the various clients that have engaged us for consulting on their architecture strategy. In some cases, we have been asked to help seed and grow such a group. In other cases, we've been asked to put together plans to define the organization of an architecture group. And sometimes, we just supplement the existing architecture group. The SOA and Web services arena is fairly new, and one that warrants the formation of a well defined horizontal group that includes several functions under it. A... (more)

Book Review: Enterprise Search

Enterprise Search provides a concise summary of the whys of implementing search in large organizations.The book is 168 pages and is really light, both literally and figuratively. Yet, it covers some key aspects of structuring search initiatives in enterprise organizations. I found Chapter 4 particularly insightful and it covers an area that is often missed, or buried under mountains of technology. "Planning Search" addresses search planning from the aspect of the stakeholders involved, starting with a stakeholder analysis, and ending with what to consider in a search strategy. M... (more)

Reflection & Introspection: Objects Exposed

One of the salient aspects of the Java language is the control it gives to developers for dynamically generating and reusing code. This allows the language to offer Java programmers the ability to write code in which the actual behavior is determined at runtime. Of the eleven buzzwords used to define Java, this article is going to focus on the dynamic nature of the Java programming language. One of the salient aspects of the Java language is the control it gives to developers for dynamically generating and reusing code. This allows the language to offer Java programmers the abil... (more)