In the Spotlight - Dan Allen

If you know me, you know that I don't really like to talk about my successes. I guess part of it is because I absolutely hate when I am the target of marketing, so I like to avoid putting other people in that situation. However, when I read the following post on the Seam Forums, I decided I just had to share it.

Dan,

I have never written a book review before but am unable to contain myself in this case. I bought the pre-release version from Manning out of desperation to make head or tails out of what I have been doing with Seam, JSF, EJB etc.

My perspective may be a bit different in that I am relatively new (7-8 months) to web development of any sort and fairly new to Java. The learning curve has been steep and painful. Compounded with this is that I am running solo with no peer group to keep me on the narrow path.

I chose SEAM after an initial web app strictly with JSF, EJB3. I was relieved at how much less code I had to write to accomplish things. However, SEAM introduces a whole new set of complexities and some of the nuances have really thrown me.

The Michael Yuan/Thomas Heute book is a good resource for whetting the appetite. However it covers v1.0 SEAM and it fairly introductory.

What I had been missing and was desperately needing was a full understanding of what is happening under the covers; something that fully connects the dots. Your book does just that! It has eliminated much of the confusion that was besetting me. I having been reading it voraciously since I downloaded it.

The community will greatly benefit from this resource. I love the thorough, careful, methodical explanations that step you through what is really going one. The abundant charts and graphics expose detail and subtleties that a developer really needs to know.

This will be my primary goto resource. I hope the example code will be available for download soon.

Thanks for hitting a home run with this.

- Andy Conn

BTW, if you are wondering what is going on with Seam in Action, I am currently pushing it through copy editing. I am taking my time because I want it to be right.

Don't access the database in a method that feeds a UIData component! (e.g. <h:dataTable>) I see this mistake being made all the time. It's bad advice and just plain bad practice. Don't do it!

What most people don't realize (perhaps because they are not watching the SQL log output in their ORM tool) is that value expressions are resolved more than once during the JSF life cycle--usually a lot more than once. Every time the value expression that feeds the UIData component is resolved in this scenario, your database takes a hit. On top of that, the result set could change depending on what you are retrieving and how you are doing it.

I will present a brief example and then show how to fix it using Seam.

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I almost decided to pass on JavaOne this year, but the free CommunityOne pre-conference and the JBoss Party gave me reason enough to make the trip (and the effort). Attendance at CommunityOne gets you a free pass to the General Sessions and the pavilion on the first day of JavaOne. How could I pass on free?

I am looking forward to the JBoss party as an opportunity to meet with the Seam developers, most of whom I have only communicated with via e-mail. Aside from that, though, I am going to play it cheap and not actually pay for the conference pass. I have other plans for that money¹. Still, I couldn't just sit this one out. Given that I have pretty much dedicated this entire last year to Seam--and Java in general--I am very excited to mingle with all the Java enthusiasts in San Francisco this year. Catch up with me if you want to chat about Seam (and perhaps I will hook you up with a Seam in Action coupon).

¹ I need to purchase myself a computer so that I actually own the one I use.

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Needless to say, I have been busy. A fair amount of that time has been dedicated to the production of Seam in Action. But that doesn't mean I want to leave my readership left hanging while I push characters around on the screen. So today, I have news that you are going to be thrilled to hear...

As you may have gathered, I am a big fan of both Spring and Seam. In fact, when I first learned Seam, I found myself torn between the two. That was, until I discovered that it is possible to use them simultaneously, each for their strengths. To advocate this integration, I decided to spin off a portion of the online Spring integration chapter from Seam in Action as a three-part series for JavaWorld titled Spring into Seam, set to be released over a three week period. The first part in the series, released yesterday, explains how to build a Spring-Seam hybrid component, a managed object that benefits from functionality provided by both the Seam and Spring containers. In Part 2, you'll learn how to infuse state into traditionally stateless Spring beans by allowing them to reside in Seam contexts, and how to inject stateful Seam components into Spring beans. Finally, in Part 3, you'll learn how to integrate Seam and Spring at the most basic level by having them share a persistence manager.

The good news about this series is that not only do you get the content for free, but you also get it sooner in its final revised form! By the end of the series, you will walk away as an enlightened developer, no longer interested in the trite Spring versus Seam debates, but rather looking for more ways to extract value out of the unmatched features of both frameworks. To you, it's all gravy!

I am thrilled (and tremendously relieved) to announce that the full manuscript of Seam in Action has been released through the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP). This release entails a completely revamped first chapter and editorial improvements through chapter 7 based on the feedback from a very dedicated group of reviewers. I am expecting to have at least one more MEAP release that incorporates the feedback into the remaining chapters of the book.

If you are one of those folks who crave in depth information about Seam right now are willing to absorb the rough spots, then your wait is over! As one reviewer put it, "You did an amazing amount of work on this book." Yes, I agree.

For those of you who demand that last mile to be completed before reading it, you won't have to wait too much longer. The book has officially entered into production! I am dedicating what little energy I have left, supplemented by my relief team at Manning, to complete this book and get it into your hands before the lazy days of summer arrive.

Note: Keep in mind that these are early release chapters. They have not yet been through the rigorous technical and copy editing process that you can expect to be done for the final manuscript.

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