Bernardo Gomez Palacio said
As Indikos mentions in his review, this book "...is not about the Java language.." but it is an excellent resource for tools that will help you set up a controlled and productive development environment using available Open-Source tools. The organization and order of the topics covered thought the book match the process that you will normally follow when setting up a development environment.
The tools presented are well explained and their benefits are well reviewed as well. You should also be aware that this is not a specialized tutorial for each tool; you will have to review the tools' documentation too at some point, but I see this as expected.
I have been a technical lead for over 5 years and I love this book.
Charles Anderson said
Java Power Tools provides a fairly detailed introduction to a number of tools for Java programmers. It fits nicely between the O'Reilly Hacks series and having a dozen books like Ant: The Definitive Guide. Like the Hacks books, Java Power Tools provides an introduction to a bunch of tools. The Hacks books are great for answering the question "I've heard of that tool, but where does it fit?" But whereas the Hacks books provide just an appetizer, this book provides a main course, enough to get seriously started with the tool being discussed. And then, if you want all the gory details, a Definitive Guide could provide the full five-course meal.
The selection of tools presented was really good, at least for me. For example, I know about continuous integrations servers, but I haven't set one up. At one client site, they were using Hudson, which I had some exposure to, but didn't know much about the others like Cruise Control, Continuum, and Lunt Build. Similarly, I've been using JUnit 3.x for years, but I didn't really know what was different in JUnit 4 or how that compares to TestNG. This book provided me with a great overview of these and other tools. Java Power Tools provides a great way to get up to speed with a general area of tooling (e.g., continuous integration servers) or a good cross-section of the majority of the Java tools in use today.
If I had to pick something to complain about, it would be Part II - Version Control Tools. These aren't really Java tools, although every programmer (Java or otherwise) should be using them. Or given the decision to include version control tools, I'd suggest excluding CVS because it's old and including at least one distributed version control tool like Mercurial (used by the Open JDK project and NetBeans) or git (used by the Linux kernel).
So, in conclusion, unless you have no free will about tool selection or you already know all of these tools backwards and forwards, I highly recommend this book to almost any Java programmer.
Midwest Book Review said
John Ferguson Smart's JAVA POWER TOOLS is a key foundation pick for any library strong in Java programming. It offers some 30 open source tools designed to improve Java practices and developer routines, from metrics tools and those used to generate good documentation to issue management tools and web interfaces. Lead developers receive a range of specific tips important for optimum Java management, making this a basic library choice. A 'must' for any collection serious about Java development.
Indikos said
If you want to be efficients and productive as a Java programmer I highly recommend this book to you. It is not about the Java language, but how to use various tools to use deploy your time productively. It introduces you to tools such as maven, SVN, JUnit, etc. which are very useful. And it is a well written text, well organized.
M. Marzec said
I was really surprized how much info is in this book, most of them is very useful for me and my team, with this book we can reach more automation in ours work ;-)
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