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Upon opening this book I was excited. Until I try to work with the examples and found that the examples were based on jini 1.0.
The current jini release is 1.2.1 and some of the packages are different. I guess if I knew jini and javaspaces I could modify the examples to work with the new jini version, but then I wouldn't need the book.
Are we talking about the same technology?!?
Nice concept but the code refers to packages, interfaces and classes that don't exist. Not deprecated, just not there to begin with. And they're different enough that it really has no relevance to the actual technology. Very disappointed.
Excellent virtual read, but fails a little in practicalities
Javaspaces is a promising technology for solving difficult problems relatively easily. This book does what it says, it lays out the science behind Javaspaces clearly and concisely with good use cases, patterns and suggestions. The author is very clear and the book flows very well. Upon reading the book I was champing at the bit to experiment with JavaSpaces. It really is a super read. The problem is, however, that Javaspaces is a still-emerging technology. The simplicity and clarity that is documented in the book, does not directly tie over to the actual using of Javaspaces. The current tools are raw and unwieldy, and there are many difficulties trying to actual start a java space up. . Also, the mechanism used by the author to discover a javaspace is now considered passe, destined for deprecation. The book desperately needs a section on "JavaSpaces in the real world". Wading through the current tools and resolving the myriads of problems that occur. Also a section on basic Jini discovery services would be helpful, as would an up to date 'how to find a javaspace' chapter. All in all though, I would definitely recommend reading it, just be prepared for a steep Jini/Javaspaces learning curve after reading the book.
Excellent virtual read, but fails a little in practicalities
Javaspaces is a promising technology for solving difficult problems relatively easily. This book does what it says, it lays out the science behind Javaspaces clearly and concisely with good use cases, patterns and suggestions. The author is very clear and the book flows very well. Upon reading the book I was champing at the bit to experiment with JavaSpaces. It really is a super read. The problem is, however, that Javaspaces is a still-emerging technology. The simplicity and clarity that is documented in the book, does not directly tie over to the actual using of Javaspaces. The current tools are raw and unwieldy, and there are many difficulties trying to actual start a java space up. . Also, the mechanism used by the author to discover a javaspace is now considered passe, destined for deprecation. The book desperately needs a section on "JavaSpaces in the real world". Wading through the current tools and resolving the myriads of problems that occur. Also a section on basic Jini discovery services would be helpful, as would an up to date 'how to find a javaspace' chapter. All in all though, I would definitely recommend reading it, just be prepared for a steep Jini/Javaspaces learning curve after reading the book.
Excellent introduction and tutorial
I love this book! If you want to understand JavaSpaces, this book a great way to go. It explains each feature in an easy-to-read fashion and then shows off the feature in code. It also presents patterns and idioms and serves as an introduction to ways of exploiting distributed and/or parallel computing (for example, distributed arrays).I much preferred this book to "The Jini Specification" which unfortunately wasn't quite what I was expecting from the reviews of that book. I'd say, making a comparison to O'Reilly's "Java in a Nutshell", that this JavaSpaces book is akin to the first half of the Nutshell book, and the Specification book is akin to the second, reference half.
If you want to do some JavaSpaces work then this is the book to get!
