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Title: Great expectations, almost-as-great disappointment
Review: Scripting is a hot, extremely-important topic, and Barron is to be commended for the very idea of basing a whole book on presenting and surveying it. However, the execution of this good idea turns out to be far too flawed -- this book is NOT to be recommended. There is no coverage of the most important, up-and-coming scripting languages, particularly Python; this is a truly damning defect. The role of scripting in conjunction with XML, EJB/Corba, databases, and other crucial technologies is absent. Nothing about scripting's use for component prototyping, its connection with the Extreme Programming movement, integration of scripting in one's general or special purpose applications; nothing on the vital issue of interaction between scripting and security. A pity: this book could have been far, far more than what it turned out to be. As it is, it provides little or nothing that's not already and better available elsewhere.
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