Teaching Advanced EJB this week.
We got a real smart group that are asking me questions that are keeping me on my toes.

Update... Erik Hatcher said if I updated to Ant 1.5beta3 that this problem would go away....

as always Erik was right.... Got the Resin XDoclet to generate the Resin deployment descriptor.

I read the tutorial on Resin XDoclet. I got past the Null pointer exception by adding @ejb:home and @ejb:interface directives to each source file, but now I get another perplexing problem. Soon.

The Weblogic Bible is an enjoyable read. If you have been using WebLogic off and on since before EJB existed, you will still learn a bunch of new tricks. This is an excellent reference that can be read from cover to cover. The book focuses on small examples with an emphasis of deploying and configuring the examples in the WebLogic environment. Their are plenty of examples of setting up the configuration with an explanations of what the different parameters are and when to use them for Servlets, JSP, EJB, JMS, and more; just what you need when you are having those configuration problems and a great reference to have around when you get stuck. If you like going from concept to implementation, then this is the book for you.

In addition, unlike some other WebLogic centric books, the coverage of EJB CMP/CMR was good. Also, the coverage of performance monitoring was really well done. And, the ideas for optimization and the thought process behind it was also really well done. These are just a few examples of a really well written technical manual--the missing WebLogic Manual.

A couple areas of concern (some just nits):

1) A few times the examples were WebLogic centric when they could have been written them in a cross platform manner ( wrt J2EE ). (Note: A prerequisite of this book is a working knowledge of J2EE.)

2) The EJB examples hard coded the JNDI parameters instead of using the jndi.properites file in the classpath, which is the preferred approach for cross platform J2EE development.

Granted at times you have to write things WebLogic centric to utilize their extensions to J2EE, but the book also did this at times when it was not really necessary to do so. A J2EE veteran will catch the difference, and a J2EE novice will not. Bottom line: you should have a working knowledge of J2EE before reading this book and there will not be any problem.

Another problem with the book is that it covers WebLogic 6.1 and WebLogic 7.0 is already out. However, the material is still applicable to WebLogic 7.0. The book was released this year as was WebLogic 7.0. This in an unavoidable problem with books focused on such a target market. By the time they update the 1000 page book to WebLogic 7.0, WebLogic 8.0 will probably be out.

Also, in the next edition they should cover the Weblogic specific Ant tags in addition to the console and other means of deploying applicaitons. Ant is the de facto method for building, deploying and testing J2EE applications, and a book like this should reflect this reality.

If you are new to WebLogic, I suggest that you get this book. If you have been working with WebLogic since before the EJB .8 spec., I suggest that you get this book. This book is not a J2EE tutorial, but it covers the basics and focuses on WebLogic specific areas of concern.

Consider this book recommended.

Links of note:

• WebLogic Bible website


• Books on WebLogic


• EJB 2.0 Tutorial that deploys examples to WebLogic


• Book on building, deploying and testing J2EE components and applications

Good week. I read the WebLogic Bible and learned a bunch of new tricks. Earlier this week, I got Resin talking to WebLogic.... that was fun. (Servlet in Resin calling a Session Bean in WebLogic). I took the BrainBench EJB test, and scored Master Level at 4.44 (97 Percentile). I took the test a long time ago and just barely missed Master level.

I found a document explaining how to use XDoclet with Resin. Gee I could of used this earlier....

My Python book is being released July 5th! I got two copies in the mail already.

I created and submitted part 2 of the four part series on EJB CMP/CMR to EJB QL World!

Okay… giving it one more whirl…. It has been a long while… but I am back trying to get the Resin xdoclet support for ejb working….

I figured out that Resin has both and task and subtask called resinejb. I figured this out a few trips of New York ago, but did not have the time to test things out.

So now I run it with the subtask, and I get a nasty null pointer exception as follows:


resingen:
[resinejb] Generating Javadoc
[resinejb] Javadoc execution
[resinejb] Loading source file C:\ejbql\src\com\rickhightower\auth\GroupBean.java...
[resinejb] Loading source file C:\ejbql\src\com\rickhightower\auth\RoleBean.java...
[resinejb] Loading source file C:\ejbql\src\com\rickhightower\auth\UserBean.java...
[resinejb] Loading source file C:\ejbql\src\com\rickhightower\auth\UserInfoBean.java...
[resinejb] Loading source file C:\ejbql\src\com\rickhightower\auth\UserManagementBean.java...
[resinejb] Loading source file C:\ejbql\src\com\rickhightower\auth\UserValue.java...
[resinejb] Constructing Javadoc information...
[resinejb] Running


Well, on the one hand, this is not a good sign…. On the other hand now I have another excuse to dig into Xdoclet code, which will help me understand XDoclet better.

No build file with XDoclet src.... writing one.