Professional Java Tools for Extreme Programming: Ant, XDoclet, JUnit, Cactus, and Maven (Programmer to Programmer) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have been struggling with turning XP methodology into a solid development process. We've had some success at my company but most times we've met frustrations primarily because we were trying to teach old tools new tricks.
Rick Hightower's java Tools for XP has made a big difference for us. My team has been able to use the tools described in this book to actually DO unit testing, and we've already automated a significant portion of our testing and deployment processes. Its also let us make a good case for open source tools at my company.
I agree with one reviewer that the chapter on the sample application is tough to get through. This chapter is LONG!!! But it was worth it because obviously you have to understand you application to build appropriate tests. The tests in the book did a great job of showing us what we should be doing with our own applications.
Maybe it's a learning style difference but I disagree with the reviewer who complained about the API chapters. I found them useful because 1) they weren't a lame rehash of the docs, and 2) they have a ton of code snippets. So I read the chapters to get the overall gist of the tool and see examples of it working, and then mainly used the API chapters at the back to build my tests.
One small complaint about the book: I was suprised when I got it that the cover was washed out. It looked like Amazon had it sitting in their window for a while before they sent it to me. But hey, the inside sure is easy to read!
Overall I definitely recommend this book as the first book to make XP real.

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Product Description:
What is this book about?

Professional Java Tools for Extreme Programming is a practical, code-intensive guide to the tools that Enterprise Java developers need when using Extreme Programming (XP) methods. It covers the key tools used to automate the most complex parts of the XP process: application integration, testing, and deployment.
What does this book cover?
The book covers major new releases of Ant, JUnit, and Cactus, plus important new tools, inlcuding XDoclet, Maven, Anthill, and Eclipse.
The book begins with a brief introduction to XP methods. It then jumps right into the tools, providing a brief overview of the uses and features of each tool. Next come tutorials showing best practices for using the tools -- the authors show how each tool is used to develop and test the same sample application, based on Sun's well-known Pet Store example. For each tool, the author provides lots of code examples and directions for setting up scripts for automating that development step.

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