Customer Reviews

More Servlets and JavaServer Pages

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Good book, easy reading, but not enough meat because examples are too simple. This is especially true if you are a developer hoping to get tips and tricks to solve real problems. No JDBC coverage is the biggest minus point. Cannot imagine any serious Web applications employing no database at all. But, overall, 4 out of 5 stars.

I've read about a dozen servlet & JSP books, and I think this is the best one for readers with some prior experience in servlets & JSP. It is also an excellent book for people who are new to servlets & JSP, but I'll clarify that at the end of my review. The book is definitely worth 5 starts. The first star is for Marty Hall's clear and direct writing style. The second star is for being one of the few books that is currently up to date with the newest servlet & JSP specifications. The third star is for having very practical and useful content such as solid coverage of web application deployment. The fourth star is for being the first book that I've read that has detailed coverage of how to use SSL with servlets. The fifth star is for having source code, sample chapters, and a slew of prequel chapters freely available online.
If you read and enjoyed Mr. Hall's "Core Servlets & JSP", this book is well worth buying also. Be aware, the first 240 pages is an introduction which is essentially a reduced and updated form of the "Core" book. But the other 450 pages is all new and extremely good content. Even without the first 240 pages, the other 450 pages is worth the purchase price alone.
If you are brand new to Servlet & JSPs you may want to first buy "Core Servlets & JSPs" for a slower introduction to these topics. But, make sure you come back and buy this book because you will definitely want some of the updated and advanced topics such as "web applications." Alternatively, you can go ahead and buy this book and read some of the prequel chapters that Mr. Hall has online.
I haven't been fortunate enough to attend one myself, but I've also heard wonderful things about the onsite and public training servlet & JSP training classes that Mr. Hall offers.
In short, it's a great book. Enjoy!

This book is well organized and well written but lacks some useful important stuff. For example, there is no discussion of JDBC and how to work with databases. Well, the author made a reference to a chapter in his previous book Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages, but it means you have to buy 2 books. The thing is Core Servlets and JSP discussed obsolete technologies (Servlet 2.2, instead of 2.3).

I think rather than buying 2 books, you'd be better off looking somewhere else.

Happy with the author's Core Servlets book, I bought this book hoping that I could learn more. However, I was disappointed and felt ripped-off. 50% of the content is the same as the first book. To be fair to the author, there is some new material, such as JSTL. However, having 2 books with almost identical content is really a waste. I think the cover should warn potential buyers of the similarity with the Core book. Sorry Marty, last time I gave you five stars, now I think I am generous enough to give you 1 star.

This book is for those readers that understand Java and are familiar with Servlets and JSP.

It is a sequel to the very successful Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages by Marty Hall. Its main focus is to explain the Servlet specification 2.3 and JSP 1.2. This includes coverage of Filters, portable web security and new tag library capabilities.

The first chapter describes how to setup the popular Servlet/JSP engines. The next two chapters cover an introduction to Servlets and JSP.
Chapters 4 and 5 explain how to deploy and web.xml. This also includes your first main taste of filters in this book.
Later chapters explain web application security (configuration and programming based), filters (examples include logging), application events framework (such as listening to changes made to session attributes) and loads about the new JSP 1.2 tag library improvements.

This book is totally focused on Servlets and JSP, so don't expect anything on EJB, UML or J2EE design patterns. What we really like about this book is that it is packed full of useful source code snippets and handy configuration settings. Even if you don't use one of the servlet/JSP engines mentioned you will find many useful topics. Another good book about Servlets and JSP, which should be on your bookshelf.

I have used Marty's "Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages" book in the past as a textbook for an intro servlets/JSP course I teach. I am now upgrading my course curriculum to use this updated version. In addition, I will also be using this as the foundation text for an advanced JSP/servlets course!

The book is one of the few JSP books that is current with the JSP 1.2 and Servlet 2.3 specifications, including several chapters devoted to new features introduced in these specification levels. I also appreciate the chapters devoted to deployment and web application configuration issues (Ch 4 & 5), as well as application security (Ch 7 & 8). These topics get ignored all too often.

Marty's writing style lends itself well to someone looking for a self-study guide, or to someone simply seeking a reference book with solid examples. (If you want to check out his style before purchasing, Marty has made his Core book available online...

I searched at a great many titles including a couple of duds before I finally settled on Marty Hall's book. Perhaps it was the "More" part that made me wonder if I would be missing something....like this was part two.

As it turns out, that could not have been further from the truth and IMHO, although the titles is correct, it is a bit of a misnomer due to that misperception.

This really is the book you've been looking for if you want to learn JSP/Servlet programming, particularly with Tomcat (or ServletExec). Marty takes you through a full tour of JSP in case you are a beginner as I was, but he also ensures he tells you about many features of the spec/language to a level of completeness that far exceeds many other titles I looked at. He also explains how to get up and running with several servers (but especially with Tomcat) in a way that REALLY gets you up and running...almost every book had a Tomcat section, but this one really does describe usability approaches for your workflow. That, alone, is worth the price of the book, not to mention the many great other things you will learn along the way.

Furthermore, Marty is very approachable. I have e-mailed him on several occasions...one turned out to be an issue I misunderstood and another turned out to be an apparent change to the Tomcat default specs. But he typically responded to me within a matter of hours and got me up and running again on those few occasions where I became "stuck" (sure, I could have skipped the spot, but then I wouldn't UNDERSTAND it...he made sure I did understand it and replied with the WHY in each case).

You may still be wondering about that "more" part...on his website for the book, he makes the full older book available as a PDF...on occasion, he refers to it in the newer book for areas that can optionally go into further detail. This avoids repeatedness, but also gives you access to yet another excellent resource even if it is only partially out-of-date.

More Servlets, by contrast, is up-to-date as of the latest specifications (2.3/1.2) that have officially been released. Furthermore, he takes great care in pointing out items that are specific to the latest specification...he also points out items that are specific to certain browsers in those applicable instances.

This is definitely a book that teaches you JSP/Servlets, but it also teaches you approaches, workflow, and much much more.

There is a prerequisite that you need to know Java, and I readily agree with that statement...you do need to know Java (and for that, I strongly recommend HeadFirst Java by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates!!), but given even basic Java knowledge, you can be off and running with this book and I can tell you it is very difficult to put down once you've picked it up.

Ross Goldberg

Excellent text. I read Hall's "More Servlets and JSP" after reading Sams JavaServer Pages Application Development, and Wrox JSP Web Development. Whereas the Sams book provided some great insight on a smattering of topics (in their usual style), and the Wrox book provides a lot of useful information out of context, Hall presents a lot of useful information, in an easily digestible format, and in proper context.

This book is also filled with the "gotchas" that usually take trial and error to uncover. It's not a regurgitation of the API or other documentation. Hall also covers some of the deployment intricacies in greater detail than I've seen in other texts.

All in all, this is an excellent book that I expect to keep on my frequently accessed shelf. I will be looking for more Hall publications in the future.

I am an intermediate-level Java developer. I find this book great for me.

Several months ago I tried to find a "tutorial book" for jsp/servlet. I chose "More Servlets and JavaServer Pages" after extensive research on amazon before buying. I like the author's style in explaining concepts, which is easy to follow. However, this book is not an introductory/grammar book by any means. The author keeps very good balance between efforts of reading and depth in technical details.

This book helps me a lot in my projects. What's more, the author is responsive. He answers questions promptly and his knowledgeable answers really save me lots of time in my projects. (I don't think it is fair for the author to answer my project questions. I always ask the questions in the way that it is related to a particular part in the book.)

Just a little more than a month ago, I came up to the idea to take certification test of Sun Certified Web Component Developer for J2EE. Initially I wanted to buy another book, "professional jsp", as a backup in case more details are needed occasionally. It came out to my surprise that, this book covers 90% contents for the test. Alternatively, I got the free copies of jsp/servlet specifications as the backup reference. Finally I got a score of 88% in the test after reading the book only two times within very short time, one in details, another just in brief. (I read the author's previous book "Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages" once in detail before.)

I don't want to mislead people who only need a test-cram book for the test. This book is for jsp/servlet design, not specifically for test. Around 25% contents of this book have nothing to do with the test.

Here I list the missing parts in the sequence of importance for those who want to use this book to take the test:
1. Design patterns is missing
2. log() methods are not discussed for exception/error handling
3. distributable web application is over-simplified

To be fair, I need to mention the part I don't like about this book, if there is any. Generally authors try to conform to new specifications throughout their books, and only mentioned compatible problems to old specifications with "Warnings" scattered around. However, the author does just the opposite. I REALLY don't like this approach.

In a word, this book is great for readers with java background to develop jsp/servlet projects. It is sufficient for SCWCD certification according to my experience.

I found this book very useful and up to date. It was an easy read and the examples worked. The book gave you enough detail, but not too much. Marty Hall is a very good author and knows how to convey complicated material into an easy to understand format.