Spring in Action

For anybody who is looking to start with the Spring Framework I definitely recommend the “Spring in Action” book. While you find loads of resources on the Web (aka lots of time to be invested) the book has indeed the approach you need if you are a beginner.

The reader is accompanied through the different chapters where the concepts are introduced incrementally and supported by good code samples. Also to be appreciated is the occasional use of UML diagrams to explain the interaction between classes.
It is available on Manning, and definitely worth the 30 bucks.

Part1 Core Spring is by far the most interesting as it covers IoC, bean wiring and AOP. Other chapters present the Enterprise features of Spring, from database access (JDBC and Hibernate) to security, messaging and Web Services. The book has also an introduction to Spring MVC and some words about the integration with other frameworks.

Key features: Easy to read, step-by-step approach, clear code samples.

Make sure it is the 2nd edition (Aug 2007) which is based on Spring 2.

Building XML Web Services with Java: Hands-On

Few weeks ago I attended the “Building XML Web Services with Java: Hands-On” training course offered by LearningTree International.

Aside the excellent central location in London and the nice facilities (canteen, coffee corners, Internet access, lab) available to the students I really have to say it is a very good training which I would definitely recommend to anybody who wants to get going with the Web Services and SOA business.

The program of the course covers different aspects related to Web Services with special focus on the standards, protocols and the Java APIs.

JBoss AS – Quick start in 5 minutes

JBoss AS is an open-source market-leader Java EE-based application server which enables the development and deploying of enterprise Java applications, Web applications and Portals.

There is exhaustive documentation at JBoss.com (JBoss AS web site and Product Datasheet to start with).

This post instead attempts to generate a five minutes “ready-steady-go” checklist with the basic steps to setup and use JBoss (*) for your development. Hopefully it can save you some time in the initial starting-up process. Good luck.

Install JBoss

• Download the package from JBoss Download Center and unzip it.

• Execute $JBOSS$/bin/run.bat

• On your browser invoke http://localhost:8080

Understanding JBoss Directory Structure

JBoss top-level directory structure

• bin: scripts
• client: jars required by clients running outside JBoss
• server: JBoss Server configuration (see below)
• lib: JBoss Jar files (Do not place your own libraries in this directory).

My guide to SCEA

SCEA (Sun Certified Enterprise Architect) is the most advanced certification in the Sun J2EE certification stack. It is intended for professionals responsible for designing and architecting J2EE applications.

I achieved the SCEA certification in Aug 2007 after passing the 3 different units: in this post I just want to summarise what SCEA is about and share my experience.

Sun fellas have recently upgraded (after long time) the SCEA certification to Java 5. I haven’t looked into it yet (hence this post is about the old version of SCEA) but I suspect the approach, exam and structure will be very similar.