If you are utilizing J2EE on your current project you owe it to yourself (and your project) to read this book.

I've spent the last several years consulting to numerous companies implementing solution using J2EE technology. This book covers many of the most common mistakes made in J2EE projects. Most of these companies had exceptional expertise in their domains but lacked experience mapping their business needs into J2EE. The result was many variations of the anti-patterns covered in this book, many sleepless nights for the development team and many missed delivery deadlines.

A few of my favorites anti-patterns are: Tangled Threads, Ham Sandwich; Hold the Ham, Application Joins, Rusty Keys, Performance Afterthoughts, Thrash-Tuning, Manual Performance Testing, System Loaded Application Classes, Running with Scissors, and Integration Hell.

Most projects contain at least a half dozen of these anti-patterns. You can rediscover these anti-patterns on your own or benefit from the excellent advice and experience contained in this book.

Bitter EJB couldn't have come at a better time for me. My development team is at a crossroads. Having developed a reasonably complex web-based model-view-controller architecture from scratch in Java, we thought we knew everything. Then it hit us: scalability problems, transactional integrity questions, database portability nightmares... we were in trouble. Ah, but knowing all, we determined that a simple migration of some of our logic to Enterprise JavaBeans would solve everything.

Or would it? We started thinking: Are EJBs really better than JDO? Or home-grown solutions? How about JMS? Does it let us scale too? And what's with these Message Drive Beans? If we go EJB, do we use CMP? Hey, we hand-tuned a lot of JDBC code... aren't we going to see a performance degredation? Why would we choose Entity Beans over Session Beans or the reverse? How do we tackle the complexities of building and testing these components? We read the JavaDocs and specs, but we still had lots of questions, and not a lot of informed answers. Suddenly, we didn't feel so smart. At all.

Thankfully Bitter EJB tackles these issues and more with humor and insight. There are plenty of good books that tell you how to build an EJB or use a message queue from Java. Instead of regurgitating the mechanics, this one tells you the why, why not and when to's of developing with EJBs and related technologies. You won't find a lot of EJB cheerleading in these pages, but rather a whole lot of unbiased, intuitive advice that will help you make the right decisions for your environment, product, team and goals.

Bitter EJB is a terrific book about technology that's hard to get a good grip on. EJB technology is complex, with many pitfalls. Some of those pitfalls are hidden, while others are so obvious they obscure the possible benefits.

Alfred Korzybski once wrote, "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." Many people are currently sliding easily through one side or the other of the EJB debate, but the authors of Bitter EJB have clearly done some serious thinking. Some of the familiar EJB criticisms are here, but so are endorsements -- with warnings, to be sure, but endorsements nonetheless -- of some EJB techniques that many others have dismissed. It's an extremely fair and balanced book, and I think nearly everyone who reads it will learn many useful things about when and how to use EJBs, as well as when not to.

Although not a reference manual, the coverage is both broad (covering the various types of EJB) and deep (including discussions of transactions, interfaces, deployment descriptors, build systems, testing, and performance). To top it all off, it's an enjoyable read. It's a must-read for anyone currently or soon to be involved in a project that might be a candidate for EJBs.

Although I figured out why the murder was committed and by whom, I didn't work out how until the end of the book. As usual Morse was knocking back the beer, flirting in his subtle way and actually got a "little"!!! bit friendly with a suspect. A good read.

The only thing really wrong with Morse is that he smokes too much. If you want a really good read in your mysteries, here it is.

If you like to be kept guessing this is the novel for you. It is also fun to read about the interaction between Morse and Lewis. These two deserve each other.

This book tracks the journey one family made after discovering their child had autism. It was the very first book I read after my own child was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder or PDD-NOS for short. The book is my absolute favorite resource and it has totally changed my child's developmental life.

Karyn Seroussi, a mother and freelance writer, teams up with her husband, who is a scientist, in their own quest to answer some key questions about their son's autism. The discover many things, including answers to their child's unusual symptoms and autistic-like behaviors. We all wonder why our autistic children "stim" and behave so strangly. This book explains why dietary intervention may be key to the reversal of the progression of autism for some children.

The book is full of pertinent information for any parent who wants to truly "attack" the main causes of autism at their core. According to the author, and backed by the reputable Bernard Rimland (specializes in autism and autism research), research shows that many (if not all) autistic children behave abnormally due to a digestive-system defect. I won't go into the details...but I urge readers to purchase or borrow this book and make their own conclusions.

On a personal note, I would like to thank Karyn Seroussi and Bernard Rimland for their dedication and information. My child has been on the dietary intervention described in this book for a year. It was tough at first, but it has now become a way of life for our family. Our son is very particular about what he eats...it has to be the right consistency and texture...so this was no easy task. But without this diet, my child would still be "stimming" every moment of every day. Within four weeks of starting this diet, my child had his first solid bowel movements...ever. His eye-contact increased by 45%, he started making regular facial expressions (smiling, etc.), he LOOKED at me (not through me) regularly, and he became social. After eight weeks, he was a totally different child! We also chose to do Applied Behavioral Analysis (behavior modification therapy) with him. I credit his ability to focus and learn to this diet! Did I forget to mention that his behavior changed as well? He "self-regulates" now only after he has eaten a forbidden food. All of the behaviors, i.e: hand-flapping, finger motions, head motions, eye fixations, head-banging, tantruming, etc. disappeared!!!!! He began talking as well.

The diet worked for our son, and now he is no longer considered autistic. Like I said before, I highly recommend this book for anyone who is truly and honestly dedicated to the recovery of their son.

Karyn Seroussi has written a fascinating account of her son's recovery from autism. Yes, we've all been told that autism is a lifelong disability for which recovery is not possible, but the rules are apparently being rewritten. Do not let the fact that your doctor is behind the times keep you from reading this wonderful book, and trying the interventions it describes. Viewing autism as a biological disorder for which a cure is possible is an idea whose time has come, and we owe Ms. Seroussi a great deal for presenting it in such a well-written, and heartfelt manner. I couldn't put this book down, and read it in a single sitting. This book presents an important intervention which I have been using for several years. My child did not "recover" but is much improved. I am thrilled that a book is lending legitimacy to this important approach to treating autism.

This is an excellent book and would be very useful for parents who want to try the GFCF diet. It also helped me understand the factors that lead to my son's diagnosis of PDD. I have applied the gluten-free, casein free diet and additional interventions such as craniosacral therapy, supplements, homeopathic remedies, homoepathic nosods (so far just MMR). My son has made remarkable progress. This book has been very beneficial as reference for my husband and I on our journey to help my son. Most of all it gave me hope when I felt very overwhelmed with the biological treatments for PDD. As the book suggests, strictly adhering to the diet without a trace or gluten or casein is a must if you are to see results. It took us a month or so to notice a big difference.