Professional Java XML Programming with servlets and JSP [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Thomas J. Myers (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programmer to Programmer | Publication Date: December 1999

Meta-programming, or writing programs that customize, guide and modify other programs, is not a very new idea (LISP programmers have been doing it for decades) - but XML gives it a profoundly new twist.

XML greatly increases the ability of the user to exercise control over computer programs, by editing easily understandable text files. These programs know as little as possible about what they are actually being used to do. Instead, their structure and behavior are described with XML in domain-specific languages, and the programs "interpret" the descriptions.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Aimed at developers with some previous Java experience, Professional Java XML Programming with Servlets and JSP shows how to combine two of today's hottest technologies to create highly customizable, data-driven Web applications. Besides a leading-edge tour of several important Java APIs, this book also contains an effective, in-depth tutorial for really understanding XML.

This main objective is to introduce a complete "application frameworks" for Java that uses servlets, JSPs, JDBC (for databases), and XML for customizing Web pages without changing source code. (This strategy lets anyone familiar with XML, SQL, and/or JSPs design new Web pages.) The "soft" or "generic" approach advocated here goes well beyond the basics and will help you rethink how Web applications work. The authors present the basics of each API as they build their solution. There are a variety of easy-to-understand sample servlets here--from a simple phone number database to an e-commerce shopping cart, and a servlet that incorporates JavaMail to send e-mail.

After a challenging guide to languages, grammars, and parsers (the underlying theory behind XML), the authors return to the practical side of things with excellent coverage of several current tools for XML, like Sun's Java parser and the Simple API for XML (SAX).

Even if you don't rely on the authors' solution completely for your own projects, this challenging and intelligent text shows off some useful possibilities for servlets combined with XML. For any Java programmer, the tour of basic servlet development and leading-edge XML support makes for an attractive choice for learning about these two very promising technologies. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Java servlet basics, 3-tiered architectures, JDBC and servlet APIs, sample custom framework for servlets, HTML basics, database connection pooling, language, grammars and parsers, context-free and context-sensitive grammars, XML and SGML basics, XHMTL vs. HTML, XML documents, XML namespaces, entities and DTDs, elements and attributes, the XML Document Object Model (DOM), the Simple API for XML (SAX), Sun's Java XML toolkit, JSPs and JavaBean basics, JavaMail APIs, XSLT and XPath.

From the Publisher

Once .ini files and Notepad are replaced with .xml files and a validating XML editor, the possibilities for controlling programs from text files increase immeasurably, perhaps introducing a new way of programming and a new relationship between the user, the programmer and the program. The theme of the book is this collection of new possibilities; its goal is to help bring about the new relationship.

The book is in three parts. The first part is about Java, with no XML in sight. It covers the basic plumbing of a distributed Web application written in Java. The second part is about XML and XSLT, with very little Java. Our task here is to summarize both standard XML and XSLT and discover good programming practices.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 772 pages
• Publisher: Peer Information Inc.; 1st edition (December 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861002858
• ISBN-13: 978-1861002853
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,720,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh! i wish i knew it...., March 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Professional Java XML Programming with servlets and JSP (Paperback)

here is the kind of book one should not buy... Without repeating what other reviewers have already added (i wish i had read them earlier), i will add more to it. well, the title says that the book is on XML using Servlets and JSP. in first quarter of the book, there is no sign of either JSP or XML. As you go through the initial chapters, you get a feeling as if the authors are in love with some framework that they have designed, and this book is a users manual (or, programmers manual, if you prefer) to the framework.... now who on this planet will want to use such handi-crafted frameworks for professional development. So, as you could make out, the book disappoints you thoroughly if you are an experienced developer. but the worst thing about the book is that it will be equally disappointing for the beginners either. it doesnt explain any concept properly, doesnt give any explanatory, self-containing examples. each example refers to the authors' framework in some way, so none of them is self-explanatory... what else to say... i guess this is enough....

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This Book Makes Readers Work too Hard, January 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Professional Java XML Programming with servlets and JSP (Paperback)

The most serious problem with this book stems from the discussion of medium sized applications built upon utilities that are slowly developed throughout the book. This essentially forces readers to pay close attention to the implementation of the author's framework and utilities (which may or may not be applicable to a particular reader). It also forces readers to read the book from start to finish with a minimum of jumping around.

Another problem with this book is that like all Wrox books, it is written from "programmer to programmer", and programmers in general are terrible writers. The authors of this book are better than most of the other Wrox programmers attempting to write books, but they still manage to come up with some pretty hideous writing, such as the following from page 44:

"We say about value objects that they can get bound into, and unbounded from, a session."

Excuse me? How about: "Objects can be stored in a session."

I also can't help but feel that the authors were not so much interested in educating readers, as they were in showing off their enterprise development prowess. For example, on page 56, we find this curious sentence:

"On occasion, when DBHandler uses one of our utilities that we are particularly proud of, we make a detour to present the utility."

It seems to me that the decision to make "a detour" should be based upon what best illustrates concepts at hand, not what the authors are "particularly proud of".

On the positive side, this book does provide a good overview of XML and enterprise Java technologies. The downside is that because of its structure, this book makes you work extra hard to find out the information that you really need.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title, very little JSP, lots of filler material, February 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Professional Java XML Programming with servlets and JSP (Paperback)

I was very dissapointed in this book. It is all over the map and very shallow. This book has over 200 pages of appendicies which reprint, among other things, the XML spec!

It looks like the authors just wanted a big fat book with lots of buzzwords on the cover. Do they really expect to adequately cover Servlets, JDBC 2.0, JSP 1.0, XMl 1.0, Namespaces, XSLT 1.0, XHTML 1.0 in the 500 pages that are left? I hope not, because they didn't. Save your money.