BEA WebLogic Server is the 600-pound gorilla of Java e-commerce development. It's a pure play graphical Java development environment, which makes the inclusion of J2EE in the title of J2EE Applications and BEA WebLogic Server a little redundant (what else would you choose to use?). The authors illustrate the development process with a fictional auction site application. The various development phases are distributed over 15 dedicated chapters covering the usual suspects: presentation logic, JavaServer pages, databases with JDBC and JTA, RMI, JMS and so on. The discussions and examples are lucid with high production values and lots of attention to detail. Nothing is skimmed over from coping with people who don't accept cookies to dealing with problems when serialising data and hardening code against unreliable networks. Overall J2EE Applications and BEA WebLogic Server proved surprisingly readable and--after a somewhat pretentious start--focuses down hard on actually working with BEA WebLogic Server to create reliable, efficient apps. The accompanying CD contains an evaluation version of BEA WebLogic Server 6.0 (registration required to unlock it) plus much more code than is included in the book itself. You'll see references to sample code on the CD in each chapter.