Taking the Next Steps

The next steps for application development involve digging deeper into the architectural patterns that form the basis of Web Services. Only by understanding the core elements of Web Services will you be able to leverage the environment adequately. The patterns documented in this book illustrate the Web Service environment (the Service-Oriented Architecture, Architecture Adapter, and Service Directory patterns) and are important outside of the Web Service environment as well.

After the three Web Service patterns, you will spend the rest of the book on various patterns that help form the structure of your business logic tier and how clients access the business logic through Web Services. Starting with Chapter 6, "Exploring the Business Object Pattern," you will look at common structures that exist in Java and get used within a Web Service environment. These help illustrate many of the adjustments you must make to account for the Web Service environment while you build an interface to a business logic tier .

If you are a reader that uses code and likes to play with the application as you go, refer to Appendix A for instructions on how to install and run the code samples in the book. You will find running code for every chapter in this book. All of the code assumes you use the Apache Axis Web Service environment.