| While Java EE 5 is considered by everyone to be the most important enterprise release, Java EE 6 has a lot in store for you and every server-side Java developer. The most widely spread technology to write enterprise-class applications just got better with enhanced EJB 3.1, Java Persistence API (JPA) 2.0, the new, yet already very successful, Java API for RESTful web services (JAX-RS), and the made-over JavaServer Faces (JSF) 2.0 specification. The enterprise Java platform has now matured to a degree where it can be both complete and lightweight.
Now you could spend quality time with your favorite search engine and blog reader to navigate through the numerous blogs, wikis, and documentation covering all or parts of Java EE 6, but I’d like to suggest that you’d be better off starting with this book. It is concise, pragmatic, and offers an all-in-one experience.
Having the open source GlassFish application server as the underlying platform for this book makes a lot of sense for two reasons: first, GlassFish v3 is the Reference Implementation (RI) and thus is aligned with Java EE 6, and second, using an RI does not mean you can’t please developers and scale to production deployments. The skills acquired with GlassFish in conjunction with those of the most recent technologies are portable in the enterprise.
Antonio Goncalves is a rare combination of friendly Java enthusiast and precise yet no-nonsense Java EE expert. His role as a consultant combined with his involvement chairing the successful Java User Group in Paris and, of course, his role as a member of several key Java EE 6 expert groups makes him the ideal author for Beginning Java™ EE 6 Platform with GlassFish™ 3.
When you are done reading this book, I’d like to suggest that the greatest value of Java EE is not the sum of its features but rather the community that created it, as well as the very nature of it being a standard that lets you choose or change your implementation as you wish. Freedom is not simply about open source but also about open standards. |
