DuBois said
I entered a rating of 4 because I just got the book and have just started reading the first chapter. However, I had no problem getting the sample code to run right off the bat. Since there were complaints about that, I thought I'd revisit the steps here.
First note that you can download the code without registering by going to the author's web site [...]
You'll have to install Tomcat and Ant before you can run the sample code. After these are installed, unzip the downloaded author's code. Go to the timex subdirectory. Edit local.properties, changing the first line to your deployment directory [...]. On a command line in the same directory, execute "ant deploy". You now have to start the database server. To do this, execute: ant -f timexhsqldb.xml hsqldm
Finally you have to start the web application server if you haven't already done so. You'll need to open another command line window because the window in which the database server is running is occuppied until you decide to shut this server down. Given where I installed Tomcat, for me this was as simple as executing: /usr/local/tomcat/bin/startup.sh. But no matter where you installed it, just go to Tomcat's bin directory and execute either startup.sh (for UNIX) or startup.bat (for Windows). When you are done running the author's web application, entering CTRL-C from the command line where the database server is running will stop it. To stop Tomcat, go to its bin directory and execute the shutdown command.
wombat said
I felt like the book basically defines terminology and gives a broad overview of the three technologies. I agree with the reviews that said he tried to do too much, in this book. One solution would have been to drop the Eclipse section, thus giving him more space to write about Hibernate and Spring. Besides everything about Eclipse is well documented, for free. I also agree with the reviews that did not like his writing style. I feel that when I am just begining to learn about something new, I don't want to read about all of the exceptions. Only after I know the basics, would the exceptions be helpfull. However, I did get enough general information to begin learning Hibernate and Spring, through other books. That in combination with the fact that the book was heavily discounted, enabled me to feel like I didn't do too bad. I am afraid if I would have paid full price I might have dropped the rating to one star. The cost benefit ratio would have been different.
Homme De Java said
This book tries to cover too many things. The book is more a Manifesto for Agile Development from an experienced programmer than a technical book.
Thus this small book misses all the details any technical person would like to see. The book is definitely not a comprehensive API guide to Spring or Hibernate, nor does it intend to be. The author repeatedly said : "more to come later" or "we'll see this in later chapter" etc. But that moment never arrived...
The books can be used to get an overall idea for a manager or a programmer who is totally a newbie to the concepts.
The more interesting part is on Agile Development where it seems to be a Manifesto but definitely not a tutorial.
Grease Man said
I can not believe how anybody who has read this book would honestly give it a 5 star. I read the whole book, waiting for that moment that I could say: Oh, that's what the author meant by repeatedly saying: "more to come later" or "we'll see this in later chapter" etc. That moment never arrived. This book looks like a hurried and lousy compilation of 5 day presentations on each subject that this books claims to cover, without proper editing and attention to detail.
I read the book riding the metro in Washington DC and I can honestly say that I would rather see DC tourists block the left side of the escalators in the metro stations on a busy rush hour day than read or refer to this book again
M. N. Sharif said
Somewhere in the initial few pages, the author give his readers a few options before reading (or buying for that matter) this book. One of them was to trust his advice, agree that Spring+Hibernate+Eclipse are cool technologies and scrap the idea of this book.
I continued reading but now I recommend accepting his idea and save some bucks or buy something more useful, maybe separate books on Spring and Hibernate (btw, Spring in Action 2nd Edition is now available). All of these are surely good technologies but the book never goes into detail of any one of them (and it was not supposed to) and for installation/setup refers you to "latest installation instructions".
Without the depth of details on any particular technology, and lack of instructions on making you up and running makes this book feasible only for a small window of people who want to try out and be "convinced" themselves personally before eventually buying separate books on each technology.
I did not comment on the content because content comes after the 'purpose' of the book. For me its a two-star book and does not even require a content review (read other reviews for content if you really want to buy this).
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