Eclipse Web Tools Platform: Developing Java™ Web Applications Review

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Eclipse Web Tools Platform: Developing Java™ Web Applications ReviewThe reason I bought this book was so I could quickly get through some hands-on examples and see the power of WTP. Also, I thought it would be really helpful to see various web development tools through the lens of Eclipse development. After going through it, though, I'm afraid I can't recommend the book for those purposes.
But first, let me applaud the web development "wisdom" portions of the book. There are some really good "why are we doing this?" and "why are we doing it this way?" explanations in this book. Nothing to do with WTP, really, but these portions of the book were very well done.
The majority and purpose of the book are the hands-on exercises. Here's where I had some issues. Throughout the exercises, the reader is always being asked to go out and download some tool or another. I spent way too much time at update sites, trying to get the right versions of things. I would rather all of this be established up-front. Just say "if you want to do all of the exercises, download these specific versions of these 8 tools". Later, there can be some explanation as to why those tools over others, but lets get a platform that's going to do everything, and not sprinkle installation issues throughout. In fact, I think that in an Eclipse book, they instructions should say, "start with a clean install of (some version of Eclipse) and build it with (these versions of these plugins), and you will be able to do every exercise."
I know it's not the job of the authors of this book to detail a tool's installation, but a line like "check the (some tool) documentation for the exact list" is a cop out. Presumably, the authors just got done using the list, so a few words as to how to find the list within the documentation would be really helpful. With a little guidance, digging time could be reduced from an hour to two minutes.
The exercises had separate iterations, which I found helpful. I did run into discontinuities that required some improvisation, though. I'm pretty sure that nobody sat down with an empty machine, installed all of the tools and ran all of the exercises, start to finish. Or if they did, the book didn't get updated.
The book was written using WTP 1.5, EJB 2.1, etc. These are older versions than what's currently available, but it's not a problem to run through the exercises with the older versions. The problem comes at the end of the exercise when they give you a "tease" about how cool the next version is. I resisted temptation for almost the whole book but finally I grabbed some updated versions to try out the cool new stuff! Bad idea. I backed-up to earlier exercises, and although I was able to replicate most of them under the newer versions of things, there's not enough detail to get through quickly (lots of trial and error). And when I was finished, I wasn't convinced it was an optimal result. But I just couldn't sit still with the old versions when the authors were plugging the new versions.
A picky issue I have concerns references to other books. I don't think they belong in the main text, really. They wouldn't even need footnotes. Just a recommended reading by chapter would be sufficient. If you are more of an academic than someone who needs to apply this stuff quickly, maybe reading these other books might be a possibility, but I'll tell you I'm not going to make time to read a 9 year old EJB book!
I'm not sure that pitching to a WTP user and a WTP volunteer developer in the same book was really in the flow of the book. This is a picky one too, and there weren't that many pages dedicated to this topic. I suppose there's a need to recruit, it's just that I'm not sure the audience overlaps very much.
The bottom line for me is that a book should simplify the task of setting up the environment so that I can concentrate on the "why" and "how" of coding. Although I wouldn't have enjoyed the "wisdom" and other continuity the book offered, I don't think I saved any time on the development environment. I spent as much time tinkering with the development environment as I would have if I had just grabbed 6 or 8 tutorials from 6 or 8 different authors off of the internet.Eclipse Web Tools Platform: Developing Java™ Web Applications OverviewDiscover WTP, the New End-to-End Toolset for Java-Based Web Development TheEclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) seamlessly integrates all the toolstoday's Java Web developer needs. WTP is both an unprecedented OpenSource resource for working developers and a powerful foundation forstate-of-the-art commercial products.
Eclipse Web Tools Platformoffers in-depth descriptions of every tool included in WTP, introducingpowerful capabilities never before available in Eclipse. The authorscover the entire Web development process–from defining Web applicationarchitectures and development processes through testing and beyond. Andif you're seeking to extend WTP, this book provides an introduction tothe platform's rich APIs. The book also

Presents step-by-step coverage of developing persistence, business logic, and presentation tiers with WTP and Java
Introduces best practices for multiple styles of Web and Java EE development
Demonstrates JDBC database access and configuration
Shows how to configure application servers for use with WTP
Walks through creating Web service application interfaces
Covers automated testing with JUnit and Cactus, and automated builds utilizing Ant, Maven, and CruiseControl
Introduces testing and profiling Web applications with the Eclipse Test and Performance Tools Platform (TPTP) project
Describes how to extend WTP with new servers, file types, and WSDL extensions
Foreword Preface Acknowledgments About the Authors Part I: Getting Started Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: About the Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project Chapter 3: Quick Tour Chapter 4: Setting Up Your Workspace Part II: Java Web Application Development Chapter 5: Web Application Architecture and Design Chapter 6: Organizing Your Development Project Chapter 7: The Presentation Tier Chapter 8: The Business Logic Tier Chapter 9: The Persistence Tier Chapter 10: Web Services Chapter 11: Testing Part III: Extending WTP Chapter 12: Adding New Servers Chapter 13: Supporting New File Types Chapter 14: Creating WSDL Extensions Chapter 15: Customizing Resource Resolution Part IV: Products and Plans Chapter 16: Other Web Tools Based on Eclipse Chapter 17: The Road Ahead Glossary References Index Thisbook is an invaluable resource for every Eclipse and enterprise JavaWeb developer: both those who use Eclipse to build other Webapplications, and those who build Eclipse technologies into their ownproducts.
Complete source code examples are available at www.eclipsewtp.org.


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