The practical, succinct focus here on actual Java enterprise APIs helps distinguish this text from the pack. Early sections provide short, clear examples along with just enough background to help you use APIs like JDBC, servlets and JSPs, EJBs, and others. Coverage of Java's ability to interface with legacy CORBA systems is just excellent, with a full tour of Java IDL, CORBA services, and Remote Method Invocation (RMI). Typically, readers will be familiar with some J2EE APIs and not others. This book can help fill in the gaps.

Updated with the latest standards from Sun, including JDBC 3.0, Servlet 2.3, and EJB 2.0, this is an essential primer for today's high-end (and high-paying) Java. The basic presentation of servlets/JSP and EJBs (among the most important APIs for current Java Web development) is concise and nicely digestible. We also liked the chapter on JMS for messaging (also a hotbed of Java job activity).

The second half of this text lists every J2EE class, along with methods and properties, in a very valuable reference section that makes good use of two-toned shading for easy access. Entries are organized by package name. (One small oversight here is that an index of cross-listed packages, classes, and methods omits page numbers.)

Overall, this book is truly indispensable for any working Java programmer. The second edition of Java Enterprise in a Nutshell is a fully up-to-date tutorial and reference that lives up to the standards of O'Reilly's Nutshell series. Both thorough and concise, it's a handy resource for anyone who works with the hundreds and thousands of Java enterprise APIs on a regular basis. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Introduction to enterprise computing with the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), survey of Java enterprise APIs, JDBC 3.0 (including database connections, ResultSets, prepared statements, BLOB fields, transaction support, stored procedures), the JDBC Optional Package (and connection pooling), Remote Method Invocation (RMI) described (building stubs and skeletons, dynamically loaded classes and remote object activation, RMI over IIOP), in-depth tutorial for Java IDL (with CORBA) and designing remote objects, Java Servlet 2.3 APIs (basic servlet processing and the servlet lifecycle, chaining and filters, thread safety, managing state, cookies, servlets used with JDBC), JavaServer Pages (JSP): including custom tags, JNDI and directory tutorial (contexts, looking up objects, accessing and modifying directory entries), Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) 2.0 (conventions for entity, session and message beans, using transactions), Java XML APIs (DOM, SAX and XSLT), Java Message Service (JMS), point-to-point and publish-subscribe messaging models, message selectors, JavaMail, reference to SQL and relational databases, RMI tools, reference to all IDL keywords, data types and declarations; CORBA services, Java IDL tool reference, Enterprise JavaBeans Query Language (EJB QL) 2.0 query language, and an alphabetical listing of all APIs for Java enterprise programming (listing of classes, methods, and properties).