Now Java has 'matured', it is time for the next development - Beans! These are reusable software components that can be manipulated in a visual environment. Simple? Well, the type of thing this book ought to assist the developer with.

Although the title contains the word 'reference' the book is more of a tutorial. Once the introductory section (part I) is out of the way, you reach part II of the book, using Beans. This takes up almost half of the book and although very useful, once read and learnt, it is not something that is reusable, as you would expect with a reference! It is after chapter 12, part III, that the book has details of the API extensions that are of use to Java Beans and how these can be used. Note this section just lists the API, with no examples given of new classes not mentioned earlier. Nor is it clear if the list is ALL of the interfaces relevant to Beans.

This seems to be the shortcoming of this book - it is never clear where it is aimed. It has more information than you would expect for an introductory text, having the Bean API detailed. However this can also be found with the BDK (Beans Developer Kit) and on-line. Then it does not have enough detail of the API orexamples to make it a useful reference text. Add all of this to the rather high price and you want look at the number of other Bean books out there first before thinking about this one.