Review by Billy Barron, Tek-Tools, Inc

"Programming Java Data" (ISBN 1-8610041-0-9, Wrox Press) by at least 14 different people covers all the various data related topics like data modeling, JDBC, and XML. It weighs in at over 1300 pages and just shy of $60. One odd thing about this book is that as near as I can tell the publisher does not identify who wrote what.

I found the first several chapters to really not belong in this book. They cover software methodogies, OO, and UML. The book would be better small and a little cheaper without these chapters.

The book then goes into database topics including basics as well as SQLJ and JDBC. The book then covers JNDI and all the web related technologies such as Servlets, JSPs, XML and WAP. Then it moves onto enterprise technologies such as EJBs, JTS, and JDO. The last part of the book goes through some case studies.

As is typically in these multi-author books, the quality of writing varies quite a bit with some good chapter and some bad. The book in general is pretty heavy with code examples.

I would recommend this book to someone who does not have many Java books and wants one book that covers all these technologies. For someone like myself, I tend to already have books on each individual topic here so it is not very interesting.