Customer Rating:  
Summary: Beginning JBoss(R) Seam: From Novice to Professional
Comment: Courtesy of Andrzej Szczodrak from Warszawa JUG (from http://jdn.pl/node/1592):
The book is a thorough guide to common Seam usages, but it lacks some introductory information about underlying mechanisms. For example there could be more information about scopes in "Out" and "In" annotations-consequences of outjecting a data model variable to longer scope. Another interesting subject that is omitted are Seam built-in tags. In fact I like the idea of the book in which reader can see almost all elements of a technology and each example is preceeded by theoretical description of a technological concept. This book lacks such approach, inspite of the fact that the author is definitely a talented programmer. The "Advanced Topics" and "Business Process in Seam" (for example: very interesting notions about combining JBPM with Drools) chapters clearly show his abilities that can't be properly brought into play in a "from Novice to Professional" format.
Other pluses of the book are short descriptions of JBoss Configurations and JBoss Tools.
I read the book when I was starting Seam programming. Despite that, there were to much general introduction for me.
To sum up I think that the requirements of "From Novice to Professional" format caused some drawbacks of the book. I find this format suitable for introductions to whole platforms or programming languages, but I think that it is an impediment for creators of books which describe methodologies, frameworks or libraries. Such subjects are often learned by people who expect another type of book due to their experience with other, similar techniques or technologies.
Customer Rating:
Summary: poorly editted, lacks depth
Comment: As another reviewer commented, this book seriously needs editting. Bad grammar, and odd/confusing turns of phrase. It also doesn't dig deep enough into the details of how Seam gets things done, leaving the reader to assume things were hooked together via magic.
It's also already out of date with the current Seam release.
Customer Rating:
Summary: High hopes unfulfilled
Comment: I had high hopes for this book as I like Apress publications, but I was disappointed in this offering. For the record, I am an experienced programmer with years of J2EE (now Java EE) work under my belt. I had not previously used Ejb3 or Jsf when I started reading this book so I did have some catch up to do to fully utilize Seam. I have used hibernate (2 and 3) on several projects and have a pretty decent knowledge of it as well as Ejb, Struts, Tiles, and the Commons Validator. I have witnessed projects using good technology fail and projects using poor technology succeed based on the application of said technology so please direct all flames on these choices to /dev/null.
I found the intro chapters on Jsf and Ejb3 decent and not out of place. The author does qualify those chapters as 'just the basics' so that is not a problem. I did have to use other sources to supplement that info as I had questions not addressed but then again, I was okay with that.
What I did not like was that reading the actual seam content was tedious, laborious, and left me with an empty feeling, but not because the material was that difficult. I felt that some topics were glossed over with the intent of 'covering' without really providing anything useful. Chapters 5,6, and 8 are roughly 105 pages long and constitute the meat of the seam content that I was interested in and it was not enough in my mind to carry it over the finish line.
As some of the other reviewers noted, there are mistakes in this book that could have and should have been caught during the editing phase. Overall, it was lackluster. I recommend that if you are interested in learning about Seam, just check out the online docs. They are organized in a more linear fashion and I found them much better. I have not read the Yuan and Heute book but I would certainly compare that TOC with this book before purchasing 'Beginning JBoss Seam'.
I would welcome a second (and larger) edition with some of the holes filled in that could work in tandem with the online docs. For example, use the booking example (or another example) and explain some aspect of it better than the docs do.
Customer Rating:
Summary: plenty of false starts - confusing layout
Comment: You wont know if the author is really talking about Seam and EJBs until at least chapter 5.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Low quality writing
Comment: I have to admit that I do not write reviews, but this book compelled me to do so. I have read a fair share of computer books in the last fifteen or so years, I'd have to say that this book is one of the worst. Luckily for me, I was familiar with most of the concepts described in it, otherwise, I would be quite lost. This book is on Seam, but the first 100 or so pages are on other technologies. This might be good for some, but I expected to get a Seam book. The number of errors, typos and omissions in this book are innumerable. English is horrible too (has an editor actually read it?). Good percentage of sentences start with "So....". Code examples sometimes list imported classes, and sometimes don't. This makes it very hard to understand where these classes/interfaces/annotations come from. The book is full of statements without a logical path to them. The title says: "From Novice to Professional". Well, this is a bold statement and the the book does not hold up to it. I certainly would not recommend it to a novice, as Seam concepts are not explained well, and would not recommend it to a professional, because it just does not provide answers and does not go deep enough for those trying to dig the Seam. The explanation of a SLSB life cycle and other EJB3 concepts are unintelligible. The only positive thing about this book was time on the market, but as I have read the Michael Yuan's "JBoss Seam" book, online documentation and EJB 3 specification, I'd say that this book was completely useless for me.
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