Dreary and heavy-handed

Inside this 470-page book is a collection of decent short essays
struggling to get out. Unfortunately, in its present state, it contains
a wealth of redundant material. Nash begins by spending 55 pages
defining frameworks and touting their benefits, and then moves on to
another 50 page chapter entitled "Application Frameworks: What do they
provide and what are the benefits?" Similarly, two 30-page chapters
on the process of choosing between frameworks are separated by an 80
page catalog of synopses of more or less randomly chosen frameworks,
libraries, and development tools. This book is badly in need of
editing.

Curiously, the chapters in the middle of the book are entirely
unrelated to choosing application frameworks. There are long treatises
about open source (including over thirty pages of annotated
software licenses,) about development methodologies, about design
patterns, and even about IDEs. Why all this material appears in this
book is a mystery to me; again, an editor could have helped.

The last two chapters of the book, which concern best practices and
case studies, are a bit better and certainly more on topic. Readers
interested in the Struts, Cocoon, Expresso, or Turbine application
frameworks will benefit from the comparative study in the final
chapter.

"This book is a practical tool for Java programmers," Nash claims in
the frontispiece. I find it hard to imagine a typical Java programmer
having much use for this dreary, heavy-handed tome. A manager new to
software development might find it of more value.

Other Reviews

• Easy to read, but superficial
• Dreary and heavy-handed
• Excellent Guide for Technical Managers