Customer Reviews

Java Developer's Guide to E-Commerce with XML and JSP

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The authors through this book explain how XML, Java servlets (and sometimes JSPs) could be used together in applications like Shopping cart and News Bulletin board.

Though the book contains a lot of code, two things are disappointing. First, DOM is implicitly suggested as a preferred means for working with XML documents even in cases where simple SAX parsing would do. Secondly, JAXP 1.0 API's beta classes like XmlDocument are extensively used in the examples. Both these are not very useful in the real world scenarios.

Though the book gives an impression from the title that it will be using JSPs to generate the presentation layer, the examples heavily use servlets with "hard coded HTML" in them for this purpose.

I happen to have a copy of Benoit Machall's "Applied XML Solutions" with me with which I cannot help comparing this book with. Applied XML Solutions explains similar examples in a practical way with simpler code as well as using open source software and stabilized APIs to achieve the same results.

So, these are a few things to consider before buying this book!

Though the book contains a lot of code, it becomes evident as you go through the book, that the author has not thought about using them in real world situations. All applications use DOM for XML parsing and Servlets for presentation of the content. A few JSPs are thrown in may be because the title says so!

Buy this book if you got a lot of money!

Firstly the examples do not try to explain which code example they relate to on the CD rom. You have to distribute the code on the cd rom to paths on your web server, so unless you are already a dab hand at configuring a JSP server you cannot begin, the book doesn't help you with this, or anything else, in fact I would suggest the only people who may be able to decipher this book are expert professional Java programmers who must also have a knack for interpreting rambling babble. Avoid this book at all costs, talking of cost, cut to the Author - tropical beach - pina colada.

The book looked great and I thought that I can learn how to build my own web site within 30 days, especially since I had a fair amount of knowledge in HTML, Java, UNIX, C++, MFC etc. My only setback was that I have never done XML and JSP programming, nor used Tomcat web server before.

The book gives very little information about paths to put the example codes, and insufficient information on the server setup. After visiting the authors' web site and setting up the codes where, I believe, they should be, the main codes and servlets do not work.

I discovered some bugs in the files and fixed them. Yet the codes (except the HTML) still do not work.

Six weeks after buying the book I am no nearer learning XML and JSP. How can you learn how to use these languages when the codes that accompany the book do not work?

Firstly the examples do not try to explain which code example they relate to on the CD rom. You have to distribute the code on the cd rom to paths on your web server, so unless you are already a dab hand at configuring a JSP server you cannot begin, the book doesn't help you with this, or anything else, in fact I would suggest the only people who may be able to decipher this book are expert professional Java programmers who must also have a knack for interpreting rambling babble. Avoid this book at all costs, talking of cost, cut to the Author - tropical beach - pina colada.