Author: Jon Mountjoy & Avinash Chugh
Publisher: O'Reilly, 2004
Price: £35.50
Pages: 848
ISBN: 978-0596004323
Aimed at: Weblogic programmers
Rating: 4.5
Pros: Lots of discussion.
Cons: Not much code.
Reviewed by: Ian Elliot

Weblogic isn't complicated but it can be difficult to get started with it and there are always small details that turn out to more problematic than you initially expect. Given the importance of getting it right, any book that you can find on the subject is worth buying.

This is a big thick book that covers many issues in depth and ignores others almost completely. Topics covered include creating web applications, RMI applications, using EJBs, deployment, clustering, performance, SSL, security, web services, XML, JMX and MBeans. Some of the subjects are treated in depth and others, notably XML, are too superficial.

There is lots of discussion of how to do things, how to configure things and what the options are. However, the actually code examples are thin on the ground and many new features of WebLogic 8.1 are ignored. Many of the topics are more suitable for the admistrator rather than the programmer but we have to keep these same considerations in mind.

This is a useful addition to the WebLogic literature but it isn't the last word and probably not the only book you will need.