The Open Source Zone

Dont buy this book. He has a lot of good topics but does a poor job addressing them in detail. A bulk of the book gives very scant information with very little coherence in the process and explanation. I agree with the earlier reviews ... this wrox book is not worth the money. I have used JBOSS and tomcat extensively in large projects and this book has not helped much. Save your money.

I've finally learned my lesson, and am swearing off Wrox titles. I wouldn't have bought this one, but the only other book on the JBoss admin topic is packed with useless information as well. Where to start on this book's flaws?<p>Incomplete and Confusing. There are too many snippets of XML elements that I could never figure out what document they were supposed to be used. For example, I'd expect something as common as configuring a DataSource to include a clear, step-by-step set of instructions, maybe even some example code showing how to set-up and use a MySQL or Oracle RDBMS within a servlet or EJB. No such luck. The only thing is some confusing stuff about setting up an mbean that's completely unnecessary since you can just drop an xml-config file from the examples directory into the deploy directory and change the values.<p>Inconsistent. There are places in the book where an example uses one set of values, and the follow on example uses something different. For example, in the section describing how to set up a JDBC login module, the code for a SQL statement is given as "SELECT [x] FROM...". On the very next page, an xml snippet shows the query used in some config-file as "SELECT [y] FROM..." Now, they both end up amounting to the same thing, but it would've been nice to see both statements the same way to help reinforce what goes where.<p>Improper. Some of the references to MegaDeath and Euthanasia used in code snippets. I've nothing against either of those topics. However, they are out of place in a technical reference. This may seem a bit trivial, but, to me, it shows a lack of professionalism that just keeps me thinking: "Why'd I buy from this publisher?"<p>Anyway, I'd try to sell this on e-bay, but I can't pawn this off on another developer in good conscience.

I've finally learned my lesson, and am swearing off Wrox titles. I wouldn't have bought this one, but the only other book on the JBoss admin topic is packed with useless information as well.<p>Where to start on this books flaws?<p>Incomplete and Confusing. There are too many snippets of XML elements that I could never figure out what document they were supposed to be used. For example, I'd expect something as common as configuring a DataSource to include a clear, step-by-step set of instructions, maybe even some example code showing how to set-up and use a MySQL or Oracle RDBMS within a servlet or EJB. No such luck. The only thing is some confusing stuff about setting up an mbean that's completely unnecessary since you can just drop an xml-config file from the examples directory into the deploy directory and change the values.<p>Inconsistent. There are places in the book where an example uses one set of values, and the follow on example uses something different. For example, in the section describing how to set up a JDBC login module, the code for a SQL statement is given as "SELECT [x] FROM...". On the very next page, an xml snippet shows the query used in some config-file as "SELECT [y] FROM..." Now, they both end up amounting to the same thing, but it would've been nice to see both statements the same way to help reinforce what goes where.<p>Improper. Some of the references to MegaDeath and Euthanasia used in code snippets. I've nothing against either of those topics. However, they are out of place in a technical reference. This may seem a bit trivial, but, to me, it shows a lack of professionalism that just keeps me thinking: "Why'd I buy from this publisher?"<p>Anyway, I'd try to sell this on e-bay, but I can't pawn this off on another developer in good conscience.

I like how the book provides some documentation on jboss, but it is not really detailed information on how to really put a .war file in jboss and have it work. My major issue is that there aren't any hello world examples. The book is supposed to use the petshop web application example from sun. But it barely mentions it and does not step you through the complicated matter of making the petshop work on jboss. What I needed was just a simple step by step explanation of how to take a struts application, zipped up in a war file, and have it work on jboss/tomcat. From there I want to start adding ejb functionality. Also, because jboss is opensource it is logical that it will be used with the opensource ide and database. I wanted to see instructions on how to setup a development environment with Eclipse and MySQL. One last issue is the book is already behind the latest release of jboss. Many of the files and directory structures have changed making the book's explainations not so useful and outdated.

I would recomend it to everyone using JBoss. It really helped me, easy to understand and follow yet detailed enough to get you through the trickest circumstances