A couple years ago, this book was one of the “shots fired over the bow” of EJB. It and a couple others, plus a lot of feedback from the field, probably led to the sea change that ultimately produced EJB 3.0.

When this book was written, EJB 3 was just a gleam in some people’s eyes – literally – if even that.

Now, EJB 3 is out. The problem it cites, the pre-3.0 EJB architecture, is no longer a problem.

Things like the Spring framework, the nano container, and stuff like that are still around. However, they might have been eclipsed by the very thing they were created in response to!

EJB 3.0 uses annotations rather than cumbersome, lengthy, complex XML files. Annotating methods, classes, and packages is way simpler than writing/maintaining huge XML files.

In some ways, those XML files can be more flexible. A lot of the time, you will not want/need that flexibility.

I recommend you look over EJB 3.0before you buy this book. If you think EJB 3.0 persistence is not going to work for you then look at something like the Spring framework and buy this book.

My guess is most people will use EJB 3.0 and have no need for this. Those that do forgo EJBs might want to read this.

It’s a good intro to what’s probably one of the next big sub-movements in Java: make this shit simpler, we don’t need all that heavy weight stuff.