Customer Reviews

JSP Weekend Crash Course (With CD-ROM)

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

 

 

The book is well worth it, if you can overlook the many incorrect screen captures. I didn't find mistakes in the code, though, so I'm happy. It certainly will get you up to speed quickly on jsp, so it succeeds. The first chapter is a rough read, but it gets better. It's evident the authors know what they're doing because they present good stuff in a concise manner. There's not a lot of lard in this book. It's the best of the series so far.

I'm halfway through this book, and I doubt I'm going to make it to the end. If I hadn't used JSP in the past (I was hoping for a refresher course), I would have been irretrievably lost by the second chapter. Not only are there errors in almost every code sample so far, but the paragraphs surrounding and pertaining to the code often don't match up with it, and even worse, much of the code on the CD-ROM doesn't match up with either. I've spent most of my time attempting to correct the authors' mistakes, just to get the examples to work. Obviously rushed into print without having been proofread, in the hopes of snaring readers who didn't feel like paying double for a REAL reference volume.

The book was helpful in giving an overall flow of how to use JSP to get the big picture. The typos were distracting and the wrong screen captures and references to wrong file names made it hard to follow examples. Didn't anyone proof this book? It is a bit out of date and I would not have bought it if I knew this. However, it did have redeeming points.

This book has spelling errors, coding errors, screenshots don't match the code, example code does not compile, etc. Stay away from this book!!!

This is not a rating but a question:

I am confused by the people who gave the book a 5* rating. Other reviewers have mentioned GLARING mistakes (the screenshots for one chapter being placed somewhere else ..??)

Are these mistakes (which I as a novice learner would consider a show stopper) not there or how did you rate the books with 5 stars? Did you hit the problems experienced by the other readers and if so how did overcome them?

I'd like to think customer reviews are honest and fair - that's the only way they're helpful.

So comments please by those who read the book before I decide to buy it.

Also a word form the author/publisher would be helpful. i.e. errata information ...???

This book fitted my needs perfectly. I know a little Java - but not a lot, and am comfortable with HTML. But I've been struggling to understand Java Server Pages. I bought a copy of Marty Hall's Core Servlets and Java Server Pages some months ago, but whenever I picked it up ... JSP suddenly seemed one of those things I'd have to put in the too-hard basket. I came across JSP Weekend Crash Course in my local bookstore, by accident. They don't have many computer books, but at about half the usual price for computer books, this one seemed worth a punt. And so it's proved. It's not intended to be a JSP reference book: what it does do is give very practical advice on how to get up and running with JSP's. I may not have got through it in a weekend (hey, I have a life other than computers!). But I'm sure that if I'd been prepared to lock myself away for that period, I could have got through it in such a time. As it is, I like the way they've broken the book into manageable segments. For me, it's been ideal.

In general, I liked the book, and it's definitely worth it if you don't know much about JSP (which I didn't!). Some of the chapters on HTML and Homesite were overkill, but the rest was helpful. The chapter on the shopping cart was the best, by far. All in all, buy the book if your a beginner, but if you want a JSP reference book, try another one.

This book has typos, wrong screen shots and some of the code, line for line doesn't work. For example Session 18 that deals with Includes and Forwards, the code doesn't work as is, some variables were set to null when they should have carried values. However reading through the chapter you would have noticed this and made the correction yourself. So yes, there are errors but the content should equip you to make the necessary corrections in the book. So how do you judge that? For me it was a great way of learning and cementing the techniques I just read about. The flip side to all this is, I used Oracle's JDeveloper as my IDE, I deployed my war files in Tomcat afterwards. All the same, I would not recommend this book for a total beginner.

Had to learn JSP from this book for work. Only good part is I've been paid for the wasted hours I've spent working around the numerous errors in the text/code/EVERYTHING. Worst book I've ever had to learn from.

This is a good JSP book for novice who understand JAVA Fundamental. Once you learn the java fundemental and want to create web based APplication using java with JSP, I would recommand grab this book to start, then go fot more advanced book like beginning wrox or others for practicing more.