Customer Reviews

Core JSP

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're like me and type in the examples provided in the textbook to make sure I understand what I'm doing, then you will NOT like this book. There's WAY too many errors in the examples provided. Not only that but the source code accompanying the CD is also full of them. I wonder why this book is NOT at all like it's counterpart, "Core Servlets and Java Server Pages". The examples and syntax mistakes in this book make it definitley a book, if I had known, NOT to buy. Almost every single example has major inconsistencies. Another thing I wonder is did the authors of this book REALLY know JSP and HTML when they were writing this...and also if the publisher was really so dumb enough to let this book slide without testing out some random codes from the book...

My review is that if you like reading just the book, then you'll be fine with this text, however if you do the examples, then you'll want to return this book. Unfortunately, I bought this book so I'll have to keep it.

Find another book on JSP if you can because this is NOT the one you would want...trust me. And I agree with the few individuals who did not give this book a high rating because they, like me, were the only ones who ACTUALLY read this book...i'm surprised that some of the developers also gave this book a high rating even though they should have picked up on the problems in the code right from chapter 2 of this book.

I would rank this book as mediocre at best. More annoying than the numerous editorial oversights in the text and code (and there are many) are the misuses of terms, both technical and nontechnical. One gets the impression that the authors are trying to write beyond their abilities. It also makes me question the accuracy of the rest of the material when I find such errors on topics with which I am already familiar.

Also frustrating is the way a lot of concepts are referenced before being introduced, with no indication that such is the case. If I didn't already know Java very well and have an inkling about JSP coming in, I expect I would have been very confused.

I was looking for something that would get me up to speed on JSP quickly and not get too bogged down in details, and in that respect the book did reasonably well. But I gave up on it halfway through because I found it too frustrating. It's not terrible, but with a bit of work and better editing, it could have been a lot better.

Don't know how this text got past the editors. Just about every chapter had typos and syntax errors. Some of the scriptlets had class instantiation problems that needed to be corrected. There were include directives that referenced code that wasn't included on the accompanying CD - nor shown in the book. The JNDI/LDAP section was a joke and the XML didn't work without debugging either.

For those giving the book 5 stars - I wonder if they tried the examples or just read the text?

This is a great introduction to JSP. It is true that there are some typoes but they are mostly harmless. I don't know how many typoes are in the code samples, because I didn't hardcopy them. My "system" is to try to make up my own code by reading, trying to understand and apply, not by typing someone elses code like a monkey typist.

This book covers all you need to know about JSP but some preknowledge of servlets helps. Nothing fancy, just go through some servlet -tutorial on the web and you are done. You need to know the structure of a servlet, that is the initialization, destruction and the doService() method (incl. doGet() and doPost()). That will help you with JSP in general. Because writing JSP code is actually writing servlet code.

The first chapter is just an introduction. If you are in a hurry, you only need to read chapter 2! It shows you how to create JSPs and assuming you know java, you can do some impressive stuff right then and there. But if you want to create custom JSP tags, or need some samples as how to write database or ldap-applications (ie. you are not that experienced with java) then you will find all you need from the subsequent chapters.

Tryly worth having!

The book has a lot of information about a lot of things but never nails down the subjects completely. For example, the book states you can do this, that and the next thing but never actually guides you through it.--> I guess you gotta spend [more money] to get that information. Another example is Chapter 11 on Custom tags. I read that chapter three times and still didn't get the point until I read some other literature on the subject. After that ordeal I felt as though my head had been used as a speed bag!

I also have found errors in the code and that should not be. Don't these authors have someone test the examples before they put out the code?

I wish the authors of computer books would just get to the point when they are trying to explain a subject(much the way Herbert Schildt does). I went through about 70% of the examples and found better ways to accomplish the same tasks on my own with less code. Learning programming is not difficult if the material is presented in an appropriate manner, however, this book will remain on my shelf and probably never be opened again.

My advice -> Try another one!

This is a good book under any circumstances, and if you develop with Oracle, it is even better, because there are many examples of JSP and Oracle JDBC, and while JSP/JDBC is intended to be database independant, it is easier to learn when the code is written for the database you use. There is a lot of useful information that will help you speed up your connections, pooled connections (which Oracle supports), and techniques for using synchronized statement to protect them. Synchronization is familiar to thread users, but well explained if you aren't familiar with the concept.

One thing the authors omit is setting autocommit off after making your JDBC connection. The idea of autocommit is to make JDBC "friendly" to certain non-Oracle databases, but if you understand transactions, you want to control when a commit occurs, and undo the entire transaction if you don't like it. To quote Tom Kyte, you never want to commit until you have to (slows database down) and you never want to commit part of a transaction. If your procedure should just update a single row, you can check the result before you commit. Setting all the banks accounts to zero may not be a transaction you will chose to commit. Checking a result is easier than explaining one. This is the kind of database specific information that perhaps authors writing for many platforms should ignore, but you may find it useful if you work with Oracle.

The authors show you how to use bind variables with prepared statements, and callable statements, but don't really go into the downside of not taking their advice; if you don't use bind variables, you will not have a scalable application. A lot of JSP examples (even in Oracle documention) do not bother with bind variables (example code is shorter if you don't) but "Core JSP" shows you code that is proper for scalable applications, and you can follow it (use the examples you find elsewhere as concepts, not as code to put in your applications).

This is a tiny portion of what this book will teach you, and if you are new to JSP and want to get a non-trivial application working, and scalable, this is a good place to start (also this is not an expensive book, which helps). This is all you need to get started, and see the value of JSP.

I only just started this book and I am already frustrated. No instructions on how to get the software you need or how to use it. The versions on the CD-ROM are outdated meanwhile. But what is really bad, the first "useful" JSP script in chapter 2 is already so full of code errors that you cannot run it! It took me hours of debugging before I made it run - how are you supposed to be debugging the stuff you are supposed to learn from? I will try to read a bit further but probably have to get another book.

in my opinion, this book provides an overview of jsp and related technologies such as xml and custom tag. the authors are trying to cover breadth insteads of depth. i dislike this book because there are many errors in the sample codes. it is the responsibility of authors/publishers need to run through all the sample codes and make sure that they works.

First, a comment for Dave Feltenberger. Who very ignorantly gave the first review. Because you CAN use vector.add() and there are always ways for using special characters. Dave, checkout APIs before comments like these. All books have typos, this is not an English book.

I have read several tutorials on JSP. This one is by far the best source for beginning JSP and/or for advanced reading. Contains very comprehensive knowledge of using JSP with other technologies and not just JSP. But if you are a beginner, This is still the best.

Definitely recommend this book. This is one of the books you want to keep.

Very good book if you like to learn by doing, analyze example code and get hands on. If you just want to read about JSP while wading through mundane descriptions and theory than this book is not for you.

I would also like to recommend "Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages" by Marty Hall, "Pure JSP" by James Goodwill and "JavaServer Pages" by Ben Forta.

Also makes a nice companion to any of the above mentioned books.