The IBM Aglets Software Development Kit is, to me, the most promising leap to intelligent and mobile application development yet. I applaud the research and development by IBM, Danny B. Lange, and Mitsuru Oshima.
But this book creates more questions than answers, and with IBM's lack of current up-to-date documentation, I cannot see the java developer community embracing this NOW as the next logical java leap; which I think it is.
My initial excitement waned after I purchased this book. Many of the examples did not work. Written to the JDK 1.1.5, no comparison/contrast with ASDK 1.0.3 and 1.1.b2 is mentioned. Furthermore, the Tahiti server (Aglet Environment) is not even explored. To me this is a fatal oversight because an aglet cannot exist without an environment. That environment at least initially is Tahiti which comes with the ASDK the book mentions.
In short, this work is excellent in concept and poor in real-world implementation. The authors should work on a second edition. Is it worth buying? Easy. For understanding the Java Aglet concept, yes. Implementation, no.