J2EE Design Patterns Applied

Aimed at the intermediate to advanced Java developer or architect, J2EE Design Patterns Applied offers a compendium of the latest thinking on using Java effectively to build scalable enterprise systems. Filled with hints and excellent `best practices` on software patterns, this book will be nearly indispensable for anyone who wants to become an expert at Java design. While there are a good many available books on software patterns, this is one of the few that concentrate on reusable software designs specifically geared toward the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), a popular option for Web applications today. The authors have catalogued several dozen J2EE patterns garnered from Sun Microsystems and online resources.

The tendency for any book on software patterns is to dissolve into software engineering jargon, and you'd expect this title to do the same given the abstract names for many patterns listed in its early sections (for example, `Intercepting Filter,` `View Helper,` and `Service-to-Worker` are hardly catchy names). While the authors do provide the `official` UML and pattern descriptions for these J2EE patterns, the real surprise is that they use a handful of longer case studies to show off each pattern in action. First there is a hotel booking application to show off Web tier patterns. Next comes an excellent case study on persistence patterns used to simplify working with EJBs and databases. Patterns for improving performance and scalability are illustrated with a travel booking application.

In each case, the authors manage to introduce a number of important patterns while anchoring their presentation with a practical and interesting discussion of real applications. This approach makes this title succeed on several levels, both in presenting essential patterns and demonstrating how these designs often work together in real Web solutions.

The end result is a text on software patterns that provides some of the best thinking on J2EE design today in a remarkably readable and engaging format. In all, this title will be absolutely required reading for anyone who lays claim to be an expert on today's J2EE platform. --Richard Dragan

User review
A classic
Its a shame this book is now hard to get. I had to track it down in a crisis. This book for me achieved no small feat. I was able to refactor an app based on Core J2EE patterns. That book, while explaining the patterns in this book, is vague. I really spent a lot of time on the Core book. For those types this book will be appreciated that much more.

This book is about code - about %90 of the pages have source. Perhaps the first book I ever seen that has compilable, working code. Also, I think the examples and interfaces in this book are much better than the Core book.

In short, if you have the core patterns book and are stuck, this indeed could be exactly what you need. I would say you could skip that book and start with this one.

I've read a lot of patterns books. Most didn't really help. Some got me to the point of asking new questions. This book, and `design patterns explained`, are in my view indispensable classics. They left me with a clear understanding of what I was trying to learn.

One negative point: I read the comparison between `service to worker` and `dispatcher view` several times and I still don't get what they are trying to say. This is one of the few places in the book where there is no code, and it probably could have helped me here. To be fair, it does have some nice sequence diagrams but its seems lacking compared to the rest of the book.

User review
NOT totally convincing
Definitely a good, simple, clear introduction to J2EE design patterns, this book has the advantage of presenting example code in the form of little applications instead of just snippets and lacks all the 'mystical yadda yadda` that pattern books often employ to make their simple content pass for rocket science. I have been somewhat disappointed by the security chapter which is basically just an overview of the J2EE standard security model. Also, being a book `practice oriented` I would have loved to see details on the deployment of the source code presented. Overall a 3 and 1/2 star book that gets a little bonus for being simple and practical.
Previous knowledge of design patterns in general would certainly help you to get the most from this text. For a simple,clear, no bs introduction I recommend Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design
by Alan Shalloway, James R. Trott.

User review
Excellent book on design patterns and frameworks
From the number of reviews on this site(just 3)it appears that this book is not getting the attention it deserves!

This book starts where `Core J2EE Patterns` ends. Instead of being one more book on patterns catalog and snippet code, it plucks related patterns and weaves them into a framework. This framework-oriented approach starts with the simple but pertinent observation that standard J2EE patterns like Service-to-Worker and Dispatcher View can be reinterpreted as micro-frameworks and continues throughout the rest of the book. For example, chapter 3 combines 3 patterns( DAO, VO, Service Locater)together to lay the foundation of a persistence framework.

Another positive aspect of this book is that it devotes complete chapters to security and integration patterns.Of late, integration patterns have become important enough to merit a web site of their own ( integrationpatterns.com ) and it is quite hard to find other good references on security patterns.

Thus this book has a lot of new things and perspectives to offer and deserves more attention than it seems to be getting.

Finally a criticism : This book mentions other books by name and ISBN numbers without mentioning the author(s) of the books. This is the first time in my life I have seen such a practice. This is definitely a bad practice and an antipattern and a cruelty to poor authors who deserve to be mentioned by name.

User review
A must for J2EE lovers
This book is really excellent. It contains the Core J2EE
patterns and theserverside.com patterns (in ) and explain you the relationship between them. It
contains lots of demonstrable code.

Web tier patterns can be used as template for web tier for
any j2ee project; persistence framework explained the
Data Access Object and Value object in the clearest way;
it always contains security patterns and integration
patterns, which are not discussed too much in other books
as . This book is the perfect companion
for the J2EE Core Patterns book and ,
and even wider than them.

This book presents patterns inside frameworks, so you can
easily see how it is used in real life. This book uses UML
in a very elegant way so it's also useful to learn UML
in J2EE.

A must for J2EE lovers.

Daniel

SCJP, SCJD, SCWCD, SCJEA and IBM Certified XML Developer.

User review
Applied patterns for J2EE
THE book to understand and use J2EE patterns effectively! Excellent concept introduction to begin with, to tide over the pattern non-gurus, comparison with established OO design patterns to ones mostly used in the J2EE community including ones on theserverside.com, plenty of demonstrable code some of which found their way into our deployed apps, great emphasis on patterns applied to specific layers of an application like persistence, web, security, performance etc. Great insight into usually tricky integration topics.

The web tier chapter details patterns that could be used for request processing with session management, view manipulation, validation and security. The persistence framework chapter was perfect for our implementation with its data access layer strategy based on DAOs and value objects, though we would have liked to see some transaction management patterns. The scalability and performance concerns have been closely investigated, as have all security designs like single-access, check-point and role patterns. A working example targeted for a leading app server could have proved useful here, though there is plenty of code available for download. After all is said and done, the chapter on integration where everything comes together nicely, scores top marks for topics not usually found in other books.
An excellent addition to anyone's J2EE repertoire.