How to Use This Book

Since this book employs a blueprint-like approach, it is best to read this book from beginning to end. This book develops the use cases for the sample philanthropic application GreaterCause in Chapter 1 and then discusses the impact of information architecture on evolving the use cases in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is an optional read, however we encourage the readers to skim through the Application Architecture section as it sets the stage for the rest of the book. If you are already familiar with Struts and the related architecture then you can skip Chapter 4. Chapter 5 through 7 builds components for each of the application tiers and the associated use cases are realized incrementally in each of these chapters. Chapter 8 implements a Web service using the components developed in Chapters 6 and 7. Please note that the Web service implementation in Chapter 8 is based on BEA WebLogic Workshop. Chapter 9 provides information on installing and exercising the sample application. If your choice of application server is WebLogic, then Chapter 9 provides step-by-step instructions on installing the WebLogic Server 7.0, and deploying and exercising the sample application.