Quick read, good coverage!

Although a bit out of date, this book is a great introduction to the Jakarta Commons libraries.
The Jakarta Commons libraries are an invaluable resource for the Java programmer. So many holes in the Java class libraries are covered by Commons, that it can become an inseparable part of any Java code. As a Java programmer, I recognized such utilities and code fragments, found in the commons libraries, that I used to implement over and over again on my past various projects.
No more! Commons is to the rescue, and much tested, working code can now be reused.
The book itself follows some of the major libraries: Strings, IO, Templates, Networking, Collections and more.
Some of the covered libraries are not any longer part of the Jakarta Commons (Velocity), and others are missing (commons-jdbc). It would be great to have a new edition for this book.
But even so, the book provides a structural, well defined review of the most interesting features in these libraries. Written in an easy to follow language, having simple yet clear examples and making a point on where and why Jakarta Commons is a good choice.
Many of the features are not well presented in the Commons User's Guide on the Jakarta web page. This book complements the online examples, and serves as a useful reference.

Other Reviews

• Quick read, good coverage!
• Good introductory book to commons
• Good but still lacks some features
• A pretty specific cookbook
• a review of Jakarta Commons Cookbook