You think you are an Alfresco expert ... well, read this book and think again. This is actually my conclusion and I was thinking about only having that sentence in this review, because while reading this you are wasting your precious time as you could read the Alfresco Developer Guide.
For sure this is not a book for "Java enterprise" novice people and some knowledge and understanding of the Java enterprise stack is required to fully enjoy your reading time. Since I am working with Alfresco for more than 3 years now, I had some development habits that sometimes were not that good, which I realized after reading this book.
You know or you heard about JBPM, the workflow engine Alfresco is using, it is not a problem, a complete guide is explaining all you need to know to start writing your own flow and to get it deployed. Creating your application model, customizing actions, localizing your messages ... nothing is a secret any more.
If you want to learn how to get all the benefits out of your "electronical" content then check out the "chapter 4" and see how to add your own content extraction, create business specific content transformation or use Alfresco's Java behavior cut points. After all, an enterprise solution should be able to provide easy integrations with other systems, especially for SSO and LDAP - you want it, Alfresco's has it, Jeff Potts explains it.
If you are still fan of JSF than you could learn how to customize the default Alfresco User Interface, which is JSF based or learn how to write a custom UI using the webscript framework.
Jeff also helps you to bring some best practices in your Alfresco development and deployment lifecycle. However, I would prefer to see some more words about Alfresco Module Packages.
This book was published just before Alfresco 3.0 Enterprise edition was released and is based on Alfresco 2.2 and 3.0 Labs (or community version). Alfresco did some refactoring but nothing was changed that should bother you. Do not be afraid of getting the book as this is probably the best Alfresco book written for developers by a, more than professional, developer.
Alfresco's ECM capabilities are explained by example but you would like to see Alfesco's WCM possibilities, simply check the "chapter 8" and you will find anything you need to start using it.
Do you still think you are an expert ? :) I do not ...
Book details could be found at http://www.packtpub.com/alfresco-developer-guide/book
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
