JavaSpaces(TM) Principles, Patterns, and Practice

Distributed

Jini and Javaspaces Application Development (Java (Sams))

Format: Paperback
Author: Robert Flenner
ReleaseDate: 05 December, 2001
Publisher: Sams
Rating:

Good information but code needs work
The URL to download code does not work but i did find it (the code) at

[website]

Once you have the code you will find that it is still missing scripts. The book has a lot of good information though you need to be familiar with basic distributed programmins. I persevered up to Chapter 10 where the code gets so large it is unreasonable to expect the reader to debug it.

The code I did get to run, after fixing package statements and imports and other typos, is actually very nice expecially when you run it on multiple machines.

The section on security needs expanding and updating to reflect Jini 2. 0
Chris.

Poorly Written
. I admit that my programming experience is rather limited, but this book made me feel like a complete .. . There is no denying that the author knows what he is writing about, but he does not convey that information in an easily understood manner. Unless you already know everything there is to know about RMI, networking and advanced Java programming, stay away from this book.

Good so far - some problems though
I am would like to point out some things about the book so far:

- The book is very current. I just bought this book and am most of the way through Chap 3. It compares Jini and RMi etc. . to new technologies such as JXTA, . Net, and Web services.

- The author is very intelligent!! He has an excellent grasp of the role of distributed object systems and is not just repeating hype. He said that (paraphrase) "XML is a time-bomb becuase its not polymorpic enough, just describing the data is not powerful enough". Wow, good stuff.

- He presents the RMI stuff the best Ive seen but in the process gets ahead of himself. His code is not 100% complete. By this I mean he doesnt include all the extra stuff like package statements and he refers to scripts like compile. bat that start these services that are not printed or downloadable or included. In the book it refers to [URL] to get the code for the book and extra files and there are not links and I cant hack the path or find them. .
So, I am hacking together some scripts and packaging this jar
files the old fashioned way.

- Also, Mr. Flenner is VERY good about actually describing all the services that are part of the Sun GUI StartService tool. Now, the reader can understand what all these services are such as: mahalo, norm, reggie, mercury, etc. .

I'll write more later as I read more though the book.