Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam [Paperback]

Bryan Basham (Author), Kathy Sierra (Author), Bert Bates (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596516681 | ISBN-13: 978-0596516680 | Publication Date: April 1, 2008 | Edition: Second Edition

Looking to study up for the new J2EE 1.5 Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD) exam?

This book will get you way up to speed on the technology you'll know it so well, in fact, that you can pass the brand new J2EE 1.5 exam. If that's what you want to do, that is. Maybe you don't care about the exam, but need to use servlets and JSPs in your next project. You're working on a deadline. You're over the legal limit for caffeine. You can't waste your time with a book that makes sense only AFTER you're an expert (or worse, one that puts you to sleep).

Learn how to write servlets and JSPs, what makes a web container tick (and what ticks it off), how to use JSP's Expression Language (EL for short), and how to write deployment descriptors for your web applications. Master the c:out tag, and get a handle on exactly what's changed since the older J2EE 1.4 exam. You don't just pass the new J2EE 1.5 SCWCD exam, you'll understand this stuff and put it to work immediately.

Head First Servlets and JSP doesn't just give you a bunch of facts to memorize; it drives knowledge straight into your brain. You'll interact with servlets and JSPs in ways that help you learn quickly and deeply. And when you're through with the book, you can take a brand-new mock exam, created specifically to simulate the real test-taking experience.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bryan Basham is a Sun Certified Developer for Java 2 Platform and one of the key designers of the Sun Certified Web Component Developer exam. He is also a course developer for Sun Microsystems concentrating on Java technology and Object-Oriented design principles. Bryan has worked on a large range of Java courses, including Sun's core Java programming course, the JDBC course, a J2EE overview seminar, the Servlet/JSP course, and the OO Analysis and Design course.

Kathy Sierra has been interested in learning theory since her days as a game developer (Virgin, MGM, Amblin'). More recently, she's been a master trainer for Sun Microsystems, teaching Sun's Java instructors how to teach the latest technologies to customers, and a lead developer of several Sun certification exams. Along with her partner Bert Bates, Kathy created the Head First series. She's also the original founder of the Software Development/Jolt Productivity Award-winning javaranch.com, the largest (and friendliest) all-volunteer Java community.

Bert Bates is a 20-year software developer, a Java instructor, and a co-developer of Sun's upcoming EJB exam (Sun Certified Business Component Developer). His background features a long stint in artificial intelligence, with clients like the Weather Channel, A&E Network, Rockwell, and Timken.

Product Details

• Paperback: 912 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596516681
• ISBN-13: 978-0596516680
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 8 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #88 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Java

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book but not complete, May 15, 2010

By 

Diogo Gonzaga "Diogo Gonzaga" (Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam (Paperback)

It is a good book but to get the J2EE 5 Web Component Developer certificate you must use other resources. Nevertheless, I would say that I learned a lot reading this book and it wouldn't be fair to grade it with 4 stars. I recommend this book for people who don't know nothing about web development using Java. However, if you want to be an expert you should read other books for complementing the knowledge.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book to Pick-up Servlets & JSPs Quickly, April 17, 2008

By 

Srihari Mailvaganam (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam (Paperback)

The recently released edition of the book is a great improvement - there is less errata and the Q&A is much more tied into the Sun Web Component Exam.

One of the challenges with picking up Servlets & JSPs is the mass of acronyms and figuring out how it all relates to Java. The Head First book is here to help pick-up the technology as fast as possible and in a fun way.

This book has some of the best tutorials to get from zero to a working web application - and have fun learning along the way. Many readers will probably also want to use the book to cram for Sun's web component exam.

I would highly recommend the book but please do your due diligence: Have a look at the content section. Evaluate if the contents cover what you hope to learn. Read through some of the sample pages and make a decision.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating - 800 pages for 50 pages of info, October 7, 2008

By 

sporkdude "sporkdude" (San Jose, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam (Paperback)

This book is the exact opposite of what you want for a certificate book. The presentation of the material is story-based, meaning that instead of giving a simple fact, it gives a whole back story and then casually mentions the "punch-line". This makes this book 90% useless. Don't take my word for it, if you have access to the book, go to page: 550 to 565. There is no new information there. In fact the punchline can be summarized in a sentence. "Tags can have dynamic attributes, there must be a dynamic attribute in the TLD file, there is a function called setDynamicAttributes()". And a small example would help. That's it. About a quarter of a page of material takes 15 pages to present. Sometimes these punchlines are not even well explained at all. Stories, pictures, and the rest of this cutesy stuff is clutter.

I just took the SCJP (with Bates, Sierra book), and if I have to learn everything I did back then in this type of cutesy style, I'd have to read a 4000 page book. If you are the type of person that needs a long story and happy little pictures to learn simple facts, then you will have a horrible time as a programmer. In fact, the target audience, people who passed the SCJP, should find this style frustratingly slow and useless.

What's worse? The information is spread hap-hazardly and there are no end of chapter summaries. They sometimes have "bullet points", but those are randomly placed and sparingly used. This makes it an absolutely worthless reference book - especially in a test where it's so granular that you need to memorize what XML tags are in the web.xml file. There are many, many other problems with this book. It's 800 pages, and still doesn't have all the information needed. For example, I saw some functions that I never saw before in the book (setSecure in cookie). Also, there is no electric copy of the examples presented. Multiple authors have left their footprint everywhere, making it feel disjointed and long-winded. It's over 900 pages and soft cover, making it a physical pain to use and carry. The picture on the cover is so annoying that it's actually quite embarrasing to carry around at work. The mock exam is much harder than the real thing and will not give you an accurate prediction of how you will do in the real test.

In terms of the target audience, I think my profile is similar to many people reading this. I passed the SCJP recently. I know Java, and programmed in it for a while, but wasn't really experienced at all with Servlets and JSPs. Even though I'm a full-time developer, I don't use Servlets or JSPs, so my work wasn't going to add anything to my knowledge.

My suggestion - if you have this book, here's how to use it: DON'T READ IT AS A NORMAL BOOK. Nothing sticks, it sucks your time, and makes everything seem harder and more complicated that it really is. Read the headers, write the examples that are presented, and get the basic feel - an hour and a half per chapter max - that's it.. Ignore all the exercises as well. Afterwards, go to javaranch.com and get SCWCD notes and mock exams and use that as a your main learning tool. Why am I suggesting this is? I read half the book, and then just skimmed the other half, and I scored higher on the chapters that I skimmed through instead of read. In fact, you don't even need the book, as you can get the same mock exam online through a link on javaranch.com

So, in theory, if you can read 800 pages and be able to remember random, near hidden points here and there without every referring back to the book, then this book is perfect for you to get around 80% on the test. I'm going to assume that this is not you, and I hope you explore some other books or try the method I suggested above. The SCWCD is a very easy exam covering a small subset of J2EE (if it wasn't easy, JSP and Servlets wouldn't be used at all in the real world)- don't make it overly complicated and boring. The SCWCD was my second Sun certified test, and I just passed it today. I spent about 40 hours studying for it, and if I used a better book, I bet I could have cut 10 valuable hours off of it.