JavaBooks.org :: Featured Publications

OSGi in Action

Publisher: Manning Publications Co.
Category: Modularity (OSGi)
Release Date: 2010-01-01
Pages: 375
Description: If you're a Java developer, you've almost certainly heard of OSGi—and also heard that it's becoming quite a big deal. But you may still be wondering exactly "What is OSGi?"

Simply put, OSGi is a technology that allows you to create highly modular Java applications. It introduces a logical and physical module format, called a bundle, for explicitly structuring your application as a set of interconnected modules. OSGi lets you install, start, stop, update, or uninstall modules at execution time without taking down your entire system. In addition, OSGi defines a local service-oriented approach for creating applications out of loosely coupled components.

With the prevalence of modern component and service-based architectures, OSGi is becoming increasingly important. It meshes well with such approaches and greatly simplifies their creation and management. It's the backbone of Eclipse's plugin system as well as many recent JavaEE containers, such as GlassFish v3, WebSphere v6.1, and WebLogic Event Server. Even the SpringSource Application Platform is built on top of it.

OSGi in Action is a comprehensive guide to OSGi with two primary goals.

First, it provides a clear introduction to OSGi concepts with examples that are relevant both for architects and developers. The central idea of OSGi is modularity, so you start by learning about OSGi bundles.

You'll then see how OSGi handles module lifecycles and follow up with how it promotes service-oriented interaction among application components.

With the core concepts well in hand, you'll explore numerous application scenarios and techniques. How much of OSGi do you actually need? How do you embed OSGi inside other containers? What are the best practices for migrating legacy systems to OSGi? How can you embrace and make the most of system dynamism?

Expert authors Richard S. Hall, Karl Pauls, and Stuart McCulloch have years of experience both in building OSGi-based systems and in contributing to OSGi implementations such as Apache Felix.

WHAT'S INSIDE

    * Master the core ideas of OSGi from the ground up
    * Learn the vocabulary, tools, and strategies for OSGi
    * Apply an OSGi-based approach to realistic development challenges

This book assumes you have a working knowledge of Java, but requires no previous exposure to OSGi.

Ext JS in Action

Publisher: Manning Publications Co.
Category: HTML, Javascript & CSS
Release Date: 2010-04-01
Pages: 425
Description: JavaScript has come a long way from its former reputation as a "toy language." The many frameworks, libraries and object oriented development techniques now in use are breathing new life into the language. Ext JS, a cross-browser JavaScript library for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA), has emerged from this mix as a one of the clear leaders. Ext JS combines an extensive library of super-high-quality widgets, an intuitive, extensible component model, and an easy-to-use API to create a full, rock-solid platform for JavaScript-based web apps. Ext JS has been adopted by such household names as Adobe, Aetna, Amazon.com, Best Buy Hallmark, Panasonic, Pixar Animation Studios, Siemens, Sony, and Visa.

Ext JS in Action teaches the reader about Ext from the ground up. By following the common design patterns demonstrated in the Ext source and in many commercial applications, the book teaches you to achieve the same results you see in world-class commercial JavaScript applications. This book will guide you through the Ext component model and layouts. You'll learn how core components, such as the Container class, serve as building blocks for building complex user interfaces. The book fully covers Ext utility classes, AJAX, Observable (the Ext events model), DOM helpers and Function Helpers and illustrates how use of JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), a powerful and lightweight data format, can allow your application to efficiently communicate over the network to the web server. Finally, you'll build on this foundation to customize or extend Ext widgets.

This book assumes that you have a solid foundation in JavaScript, but requires no previous exposure to Ext JS.

WHAT'S INSIDE

    * Building dynamic UIs using core components like panels with layouts
    * Creating live forms that submit data without a page refresh
    * Effective UI using trees, menus, and toolbars
    * Creating custom composite widgets
    * Full coverage of Ext JS 3.0

Table of Contents

PART I - Introduction to Ext JS
1. A framework apart
2. Back to the basics
3. Events, Components, and Containers

PART II - Ext components
4. Panels TabPanels and windows
5. Organizing Components
6. Ext takes Form
7. The venerable GridPanel
8. The EditorGridPanel
9. Taking root with Trees
10. Toolbars and Menus
11. Drag and drop with Widgets

PART III - Building a configurable composite component
12. Developing object-oriented code with Ext
13. Building a composite widget
14. Applying advance UI techniques

Algorithms of the Intelligent Web

Publisher: Manning Publications Co.
Category: Miscellaneous
Release Date: 2009-05-01
Pages: 368
Description: Web 2.0 applications are best known for providing a rich user experience, but the parts you can't see are just as important—and impressive. Many Web 2.0 applications use powerful techniques to process information intelligently and offer features based on patterns and relationships in the data that couldn't be discovered manually. Successful examples of these Algorithms of the Intelligent Web include household names like Google Ad Sense, Netflix, and Amazon. These applications use the internet as a platform that not only gathers data at an ever-increasing pace but also systematically transforms the raw data into actionable information.

Algorithms of the Intelligent Web is an example-driven blueprint for creating applications that collect, analyze, and act on the massive quantities of data users leave in their wake as they use the web. You'll learn how to build Amazon- and Netflix-style recommendation engines, and how the same techniques apply to people matches on social-networking sites. See how click-trace analysis can result in smarter ad rotations. With a plethora of examples and extensive detail, this book shows you how to build Web 2.0 applications that are as smart as your users.

AspectJ in Action, Second Edition

Publisher: Manning Publications Co.
Category: Miscellaneous
Release Date: 2009-08-01
Pages: 550
Description: While it's good practice to break down a program into distinct features with minimal overlap in functionality, some functionalities in a typical enterprise application defy this desired separation of concerns. Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) helps programmers deal with these crosscutting concerns—such as tracing, transaction management, and security—that cut across multiple modules in an application. AOP and its most powerful implementation for Java, called AspectJ, simplify implementation of enterprise applications by modularizing crosscutting concerns that abound in such applications.

AspectJ in Action, Second Edition is a revised and updated edition of the bestselling first edition. This book, now covering AspectJ 6 and Spring 2.5, will guide you through AOP and AspectJ using practical applications so you can create systems that are easier to understand, implement, and maintain.

Expert author Ramnivas Laddad shows you how to combine various popular technologies such as Spring, Hibernate, Swing, and JDBC with AspectJ to create reusable solutions for common problems such as logging and tracing, monitoring, architectural policy enforcement, transaction management, concurrency control, security, and domain logic implementation. AspectJ in Action, Second Edition also gets you up-to-date with the latest AspectJ five features including annotation-based syntax, XML-based syntax, and load-time weaver, as well as annotation-based crosscutting.

AspectJ shows its real power when combined with a lightweight enterprise framework such as Spring. This book shows you various pragmatic approaches to Spring-AspectJ integration, which is a major feature of Spring 2.5.

This book is for developers who have experience in AOP and AspectJ, but also for those who are new to both. If you are already familiar with AspectJ, you will find this edition immensely helpful in answering questions such as:

   1. What are the ways to leverage these technologies?
   2. What applications AOP is suitable for?
   3. What are the best practices and traps?
   4. Which kind of weaving should you use?
   5. When to use Spring AOP and AspectJ AOP?

The applications presented in this book will convince you that AOP vastly simplifies creation of enterprise application. And there is plenty of reusable code to get you started quickly.

Grails in Action

Publisher: Manning Publications Co.
Category: JVM Languages & Frameworks
Release Date: 2009-05-01
Pages: 520
Description: Web apps shouldn't be hard to build, right? The developers of Grails agree. This hyper-productive open-source web framework lets you "code by convention", leaving you to focus on what makes your app special. Through its use of Groovy, it gives you a powerful, Java-like language and full access to all Java libraries. And you can adapt your app's behavior at runtime without a server restart.

Grails in Action is a comprehensive guide to the Grails framework. First, the basics: the domain model, controllers, views, and services. Then, the fun! Dive into a Twitter-style app with features like AJAX/JSON, animation, search, wizards—even messaging and Jabber integration. Along the way, you'll discover loads of great plugins that'll make your app shine. Learn to integrate with existing Java systems using Spring and Hibernate. You'll need basic familiarity with Java and the web. Prior experience with Groovy is not necessary.

WHAT'S INSIDE

    * A concise Groovy primer
    * Advanced UI development
    * Enterprise integration
    * Plugin development
    * Tips and tricks from the trenches