Pro NetBeans IDE 5.5 Enterprise Edition Review

Adam Myatt's "Pro NetBeans IDE 5.5 Enterprise Edition" could be quite well an introductory course to Enterprise programming in general and especially a good book for NetBeans IDE (future) users in particular.

It's quite decent for a novice programmer because it consists of small tutorials and introductions in all the different technologies that the NetBeans IDE supports. It gives you the starting point in your endeavor. It's most needed for an introductory course in any Enterprise since it touches a lot of important points like unit-test, good javadoc, version control, build system (ant-centric, like the IDE) and more.

Since it covers that many topics there isn't actually enough space to go too deep into any of the subjects. The spotlight is after all on the NetBeans IDE and the features it has. This is quite a shame since there were some unique things that could have been discussed more upon: Jackpot refactorings made me really curious...

It's also nice to see some features I've discovered myself in the IDE after a while - like the database support and SQL command window - which turned out to be quite useful. Readers get a chance to find out about them from the start.

All in all, a good book that covers a lot of ground. It doesn't touch at all making NetBeans Platform modules, but that's not expected for a NetBeans IDE user. Although, after a while of living in your own IDE, you can't help it but customize it a little -- enter module development.