I keep thinking I’ll have time to post full reviews, but the fact is I’ve been too busy to post anything at all. So here’s a quick list of what I’m reading lately that I can say good things about. They are in the Java and open source development vein.
“Better, Faster, Ligher Java” by Bruce Tate (of Bitter Java fame) and Justin Gehtland. O’Reilly. Just out, a terrific and quick manifesto for forward-thinking Java folks who appreciate real-world wisdom. Down with J2EE/EJB fat, up with Spring, Hibernate and all the good things that make Java work well in practice. Friends don’t let friends write EJBs.
“J2EE Development without EJB” by Rod Johnson. Wrox. Detect a theme? The backlash is on, and these guys are leading the charge. Rod is the original author of the Spring Framework, which if you haven’t heard of yet you will soon. He’s a superb writer and a true protector of the heart of Java development.
“Lucene in Action” by Gospodnetic and Hatcher. Manning. Lucene is just goodness and light, and Hatcher has been a trusted source on related topics (his Ant book is beyond excellent). This covers all those goodies I’ve wanted to figure out but didn’t have time, like indexing MS Office docs from Java for full-text search, etc.
“Hibernate in Action” by Bauer and King. Manning. Gavin King’s the man behind Hibernate, so this is the source…and a good one. It’s essential reading to really grasp what the online docs don’t offer in depth. How to map relationships between objects is a good example, it’s handled well here. This is also such a wonderfully well-written book about application design that it almost stands on its on for that, too.
“Professional Hibernate” by Pugh, Gradecki. Wrox. Not as good as Bauer and King but a second perspective can be useful, and it takes more of a step-by-step approach on some things. The sections on XDoclet support are useful, too.
[I did read part of the "XDoclet in Action" from Manning but found it didn't hold my interest. A large part of the book focuses on applications of XDoclet I'm not interested in, like EJBs. Like most Manning books, it seemed solid though.]
“Agile & Iterative Development” by Craig Larman. Addison-Wesley. Larman’s very important, a great writer with a tremendous depth of understanding about development methodologies and software design. His tome “Applying UML and Patterns” is essential (if heavy) reading. This book is much lighter, and provides his characteristically thorough coverage of Agile concepts and methodologies. It must be taken with a grain of salt, however, given the ivory tower qualities that sometimes seep in; it’s up to you to fill in the gaps and bridge to the real world where clients aren’t always up for what the methodology prescribes and you have to be willing to compromise to do good (or make a living).
“Pragmatic Version Control Using CVS” by Hunt and Thomas. These guys continue to provide a great service to the developer community with clearly-written and useful books. I never really wanted to dive into the details of CVS, but these guys make it almost enjoyable.
That’s it for now. If I ever finish my Spring+Hibernate+Lucene hobby project for publishing book reviews, and find my Amazon affiliate info, maybe I’ll do something more formal.
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