Acknowledgments

This book began six years ago as an extension of the series begun by Java in a Nutshell. The readers of the past two editions have provided us with plenty of constructive comments, criticism, suggestions, and validation over that time, and at the end of the day, they are the inspiration for this new edition. The authors would also like to extend their gratitude to the book's technical reviewers, whose constructive criticism has done much to improve this work: Ed Zarecor, Doug Heath, Pat Niemeyer, Max Cooper, Steve Ditlinger, Bruce Tate, and Roshni Malani.

Jim Farley

First and foremost, I have to thank my coauthors, because this book simply wouldn't exist without them. Many thanks to Will Crawford for revising and extending the bulk of the chapters on web components (servlets, JSP, and JSF), for the updated chapter on JDBC, and the reworked chapter on XML. Thanks to Prakash Malani for his contributions to the chapters on security and transactions, and for his gracious attitude and generous efforts in reviewing others' material; to Justin Gehtland for the much-needed chapter on Hibernate; and to John Norman for the new chapter on Struts, which rounds out the web components material. It's been a pleasure working with you all on this.

But a writing project of any kind requires a much larger cast of characters than those listed on the cover. Deb Cameron had the unenviable job of editing this edition, which turned out to be a much bigger job than she signed up for, due to the new direction we decided to take with the book. She also had to deal with five authors and managed to pull it off with little damage (emotional, physical, temporal, or otherwise) and a lot of grace.

My wife, Sandy Mallalieu, was supportive as always through this latest writing project. My many colleagues in the high-tech industry were invaluable sounding boards and critics for many of the new ideas in this editionI can't possibly list them all here, but you know who you are, and I thank you for your thoughts on difficult and sometimes esoteric issues. A special round of thanks goes out to all of my Harvard students, who were willing and eager guinea pigs for some of the concepts that found their way into the book in one form or another. And, as usual, for late-night inspiration, my undying gratitude to Madeline and to Declan MacManus (and his new wife).

William Crawford

The usual acknowledgments, of course: my parents, my family, my friends. In the office, I had excellent support from my colleagues at Perceptive Informatics, especially Howard Foster, who did his best to make sure I had time to actually work on writing projects, and Dave Godwin, who bought a large box of books in the hope that it would impress the customers. The jury is still out on that one.

Jim Farley, my partner in crime for three editions now, has really been responsible for keeping this process rolling. Despite Jim's prodigious output, we probably wouldn't have made our final deadline without the help of Prakash Malani, John Norman (who got to port my JSF example over to Struts, in a project that was quite possibly the first and last of its kind), and Justin Gehtland. Welcome aboard.

I'd also like to thank the students in the various courses I've taught over the last year. It's easy to forget the kinds of questions we ask when we're just starting out. In particular, my April 2005 Enterprise Java class at Alliant Corporation gave me the opportunity to test out the JSF tutorial before we went to press, as well as showing me a great time in Hanoi.

The third Java Enterprise in a Nutshell Patient Editor award goes to Deb Cameron, with special distinction for this edition, and great appreciation for helping me work around the literally dozens of emergencies that afflicted this last year. Sorry there's no plaque, but thanks for a great job.

Prakash Malani

This writing project has been amazing but challenging at the same time. Deb and my fellow authors have always gone way out of their way to help! Working with these wonderful individuals has been a great pleasure.

I am in great debt to my friend Ron Hitchens for having the confidence to recommend me for this exciting project. I would sincerely like to thank Mike Loukides for trusting me to help out. I am grateful to my close friends Max Cooper and Steve Ditlinger as well as my sister Roshni Malani, who did an awesome job of carefully reviewing the chapters. However, any and all mistakes are solely mine.

My wife, Clare Zhang, and my son, Arun Malani, are always loving, patient, understanding, and encouraging. Without their help and support, this project would not have been possible. I dedicate the chapter on transactions to them.

I dedicate the chapter on security to my parents, Chandrakant and Rajukumari Malani, who have done an awesome job of bestowing everything upon me! Their dedication and sacrifice for their kids always inspires me to be a better person, and especially a better parent!

John G. Norman

Thank you, Jim and Deb, for bringing me on! And to Jim and Will for reading the chapter on Struts with attention and care. My students in the Enterprise Java course at Harvard Extension have been a great help in reminding me to be clear and eschew surplusage. At work, I am grateful to everyone at H3.com, and especially to Stan Ward and Hans Gieskes for not noticing too much when I ducked out occasionally to write. The usual thanks to the likes of Alex Chilton, Norman Blake, Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker, Peter Perrett, and Pete Shelley.

Finally, Juliette et Caroline: merci pour tous votre amour et dévotion.

Justin Gehtland

I'd like to thank Deb Cameron and Michael Loukides for thinking of me, the rest of the team for letting me join at the last second, and Gavin King, the founder of the Hibernate project, for launching such a cool tool. And, as always, Lisa and Zoe.