Customer Reviews

Pro Apache Struts with Ajax (Expert's Voice in Java)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is fine for learning struts but I was looking for a book on how to combine javascript frameworks like prototype, yui, jquery, with struts.

what is the best coding pratice? to have xmlhttprequests to struts actions that produce html code? xml code? json? or use something like DWR that return your MVC model as javascript objects.

this book doesn't tell you anything about whats the best way to set up your struts controllers / view to use ajax.

wrong title imo

There is some decent info on struts, and after searching for information online, I think this book puts stuff together in an easy-to-read and easy-to-follow way. The big downside to me is that the book talks too much about anti-patterns and other design issues that are somewhat ancillary to struts itself. This information isn't necessarily incorrect or even inappropriate for someone learning struts, but my need is to get up to speed quickly on struts and I would rather not see this stuff interspersed with struts itself. Perhaps if the authors feel strongly about covering anti-patterns, it could be done in a couple of self-contained chapters instead of slowing down the rest of the book.

I would like to write a longer review but I'm pressed for time so I'll keep it short and sweet.

The authors have created a very easy to follow guide (and reference) for beginning Struts development. I've found it very useful for the project I am working on. A couple of shortcomings...

In the section on Struts form validation, they don't go into how one would handle using ActionForm's validate() method to validate a form when the associated HTML FORM uses [for example] html:optionscollection to present a pulldown with choices. Forwarding to the controller, and an action that could then repopulate the beans with the pulldown values would make sense but I'll have to figure this out on my own to see if that's the way to do it.

Also, nobody responded to my email in which I asked questions about the text. I used the email address from the book but didn't get a response.

All in all, a very good book. Absolutely worth the money.

This book, so far, seems to be a fine book about Struts. I am giving this rating to this book for one reason. For an approximately 500 page book, only about 10 pages deal with AJAX. Should AJAX be in the title? I don't think so, one could probably find that much information on the web in a few minutes.

As a tutorial and reference on just Struts, this book is fine. But since the title of the book is "Pro Apache Struts with Ajax," presumably you want to learn how to integrate Struts with Ajax.

Be forewarned, however, that the Ajax material amounts to about 10 pages at the end of the book. It's essentially one simple, incomplete example with the remaining details left "as an exercise for the reader". Very unhelpful, and certainly not up to the caliber you'd expect from APress.

This book got me started with Struts very quickly. I was able to quickly learn the basics and start writing my first struts app. I haven't finished the book yet, but it is already worth the money I paid.