| This book is mainly aimed at people who already have knowledge of standard Java and have been developing small, client-side applications for the desktop. If you have read and absorbed the information contained in an entry-level book such as Ivor Horton’s Beginning Java 2 (Wrox, 2004; ISBN 0-7645-6874-4), then you will be well placed to begin your journey to developing server-side applications using Java EE.
We assume that you know how to use your development environment to compile class files and create JAR files. If you are a vi and command-line lover, we assume you know how to set a classpath and use javac to compile files. If you use an integrated development environment (IDE), we assume you know how to use your IDE to create and compile projects, and deploy those projects. Maybe you use the Jakarta Ant build system; in that case, we assume you can create and run your own Ant build scripts to compile, package, and deploy applications. Whatever system you use, we assume you are comfortable with the process of writing and compiling code.
If you are coming from another object-oriented language, such as C++ or C#, and you wish to begin developing enterprise-level applications with Java, then you will also benefit greatly from this book. The coding concepts, principles, and constructs are similar—you just need to watch out for the syntax differences and, obviously, the different code architecture for the different technology areas of Java EE.
This book will take you from having a good grip of the basic Java language to being able to create reusable and scaleable components of Java EE, such as JavaServer Pages (JSP) pages, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), and web services. |