The Open Source Zone

This is a "intro" book from several authors. If you don't know the j2ee technology at all or you intend to know any part of the j2ee then this is a good start point. But if you liked to dig into a specific area or to develop an j2ee application then this book is not sufficient.
Moreover this j2ee book is a bit obsolate, the 1.3 edition is a better choice though the j2ee tech goes to the 1.4 edition.

This is a great book for people wanting to learn more about the many features, services, packages and nuances of Enterprise Java. I have yet to see another book that as much breadth of information on J2EE. It explains what each part is, how it works, and how it integrates with other parts. While you would have to buy some additional books if you needed more in-depth information on a particular topic, this book will help you know which questions to ask. Granted, with so many authors there isn't much continuity, and being a Wrox book there will be errors in the examples. But as a reference book, especially for newbies, this one is hard to top.

This book is one the most comprehensive ones that I've bought. It provides you with most of the possible technologies that you could use in a basic J2EE application. I love the section on the J2EE architecture. For newbies I typcially request that they read that section first. It does justice to basic topics like JDBC & Servlets & tag libraries, and the concepts about them. As well as introduces EJBs and other technologies. I am a long time java developer and I use it as a constant reference. Great job WROX!

Overall the book is ok as a reference material. But not a really good as a teaching material. I found it to be not very concise in delivering the intended information. At times it feels that the authors are wondering aimlessly. However, the book is packed with good information making it a rather decent source of reference material...

The content of the book is a great way for Java programmers to get an overview of the J2EE APIs and Java-based Web applications with reasonable hands-on depth. I can't say enough in that regard. More depth requires more specific books, but that's just due to the size of J2EE. However, the editing on this book is just short of awful. There are numerous typos and non-grammatical sentences. Part of this is obviously insufficient attention given to the writing of non-native speakers. The approach differs radically from chapter to chapter, ranging from elaborated regurgitation of the documentation (useful due to its experienced commentary) to teaching almost solely by example. In one chapter, the author's coding style is full of distracting peculiarities. If he were consistent in their use, it may not be so distracting, and his at time really strange departures from common control structure idioms leaves you guessing. If the chapter weren't so strong from an architecture and design perspective, you would wonder about his command of Java. All in all, I recommend this book as in introductory cram course on J2EE, but the Wrox multi-team approach broke down somewhat here.