Book Review: “Java EE 7 Developer Handbook” by PACKT / Pilgrim

Java EE 7 Developer Handbook is a book for experienced Java developers, published by PACKT. Author is Peter A. Pilgrim.

Content
The books introduces many important Java EE 7 specifications: CDI, EJB, JPA, Servlets, JMS, Bean Validation, JAX-RS and some other stuff such as WebSockets, HTML5 support and Java Transaction API. Each chapter contains an introduction, source code examples and explanations of most important features and configurations. Source code examples can be downloaded, too.

Cool side note
Introduces and uses Gradle as build system and Arquillian for writing integration tests.

Summary
Even though the book starts with a short introduction to Java EE in general, this book is not suited for beginners. If you have no experience with Java EE yet, the information of this book will be too much for you. Get another book which offers step-by-step introduction examples for getting started with Java EE.
The book is perfect for getting an overview about many new Java EE 7 features. If you already have experience with Java EE, then this book is for you! The book does not go into all detail, of course. Java EE is too extensive for one book. You can write a single book about each specification. So, this book is a very good introduction to Java EE 7 and can also be used as reference book. If you need more details, you have to buy additional books for specific topics such as EJB or JSF.
A disappointing aspect is that, unfortunately, some new Java EE 7 features are not mentioned with more than just one or two sentences. IMO, this is fine for minor updates (e.g. JSF or JCA). Though, important new specifications (especially Batch) are missing, too.

Have fun with Java EE 7…

Best regards,
Kai Wähner (@KaiWaehner)