Press Release
December 13, 2004
"Jakarta Commons Cookbook": Open Source Solutions to Common Java Development Problems
Sebastopol, CA--The Jakarta Commons is a set of small, popular components
from the Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta project. Ranging from the
elementary to the complex, these libraries are considered indispensable to
any project by many Java developers. "The components are so widespread,
they may already be on your classpath," says Timothy M. O'Brien, author of
Jakarta Commons Cookbook (O'Reilly, US $44.95). "If you develop an
application using Jakarta Struts, Apache Tomcat, or Hibernate, you have
CommonsBeanUtils and Commons Logging in your classpath. If you just
installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux with the default configuration, you've
got Commons libraries somewhere in /usr." But pervasiveness doesn't
necessarily translate into familiarity, and while Jakarta Commons may be
everywhere, many developers are still unaware of the capabilities these
components provide.
Although few application developers would consider writing a custom XML
parser, many developers frequently write custom components that duplicate
freely available libraries. These developers simply don't know that the
open source components exist. "Many people know of these components in a
general sense, but few have the months or weeks necessary to sit down and
read the relevant tutorials, FAQs, blogs, and archived mailing lists
associated with each component," notes O'Brien. "The amount of work
involved in keeping up-to-date with an array of open source communities is
not trivial. This is why I've tried to compact much of this information
into easily accessible recipes."
The recipes in the Jakarta Commons Cookbook provide a survey of these
open source tools using the practical problem/solution format of O'Reilly's
popular Cookbook series. The recipes provide the information developers
need to start using Commons in a few minutes. The accompanying
Discussion and See Also sections give readers an opportunity to dig deeper
into the motivation behind each component if they need more information.
Here's a partial listing of the Commons projects and components the book
covers:
Additions to the core Java language, including string and date manipulation, string encoding, and parameter validation
Support for XML, from parsing and document generation to Xpath support to indexing XML documents with a search engine
Templating frameworks that allow developers to go beyond the basics of JSP
Utilities for working with FTP, SMTP, POP, NNTP, http, and WebDAV
New approaches to programming using functors, including predicates, closures, transformers, and functors as a replacement for control structures such as for and while
New collections and collections utilities, including an LRU Map, predicted collections, typed collections for Java 1.4, filtering iterators, and set operations
The extensive JavaBean Jakarta Commons, from transforming beans to maps to serializing beans to XML
New math libraries that provide support for matrices, complex numbers, and linear regression
Instructions for using Jakarta Commons components with Maven and Ant
Logging, encoding, and object pools
The tools introduced in Jakarta Commons Cookbook will save developers
significant time and provide them with a set of alternatives which they
may not currently be aware of. "I wish I had read a book like this five
years ago," O'Brien says. "It would have accelerated my learning and
helped me to avoid some costly design decisions." Part structured
reference, part prose, the Cookbook format lets readers customize their
learning experience. It's the indispensable resource for those who want
to get started using the Jakarta Commons libraries as well as those who'd
like a comprehensive guide to keep close at hand.
Additional Resources:
Jakarta Commons Cookbook
Timothy M. O'Brien
ISBN: 0-596-00706-X, 377 pages, $44.95 US, $65.95 CA
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
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