The latest release of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), represents the evolution of Sun Microsystem's server-side development platform into a more mature and sophisticated specification. The evolution of Java from a means of developing applets to be run in browsers, to a programming model capable of driving today's enterprise applications has been remarkable.;This book is a journey through J2EE and in particular the 1.3 version of the specification. Since J2EE 1.3 requires J2SE 1.3, it will also discuss some of the J2SE 1.3 features as appropriate.;This book starts by introducing the programming needs for enterprise application development, the various technologies that are available for building such applications, and how to build such applications using those technologies. It goes on to include a wide variety of technologies, some of which are more complex than others, each fulfilling a specific set of technical needs.;This book will introduce you to almost the entire range of J2EE technologies. Despite the complexity of some of these areas, this book attempts to introduce each of these topics from fundamentals. In this way, you can study these topics in whichever order you prefer.