Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Java Server Pages and Servlets

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've never been so happy to find a book as I've been to find this one! If you're like me, this is the perfect book for you, and from what I can tell, it's one of a kind.

I'd seen books on Java (servlets), books on JSP, books on XML, and understand the concepts of presentation/application/data layers for web applications. Unfortunately, all the books seemed to treat these techonologies as if they were stand-alone solutions. The clear focus of this book is how to get these technologies to work together to provide an elegant, modular, and easily maintainable solution to application problems.

Even in the first chapters (basic JSP application), the book is already laying out it's primary theme. It specifically draws your attention to the way the JSP's use Java in two basic areas. The first half being the creation and manipulation of objects, and the second half being the presentation of the data. It then explains that in a few chapters you'll learn that the top half should be in a servlet and the JSP should focus on the second half.

IRT some of the other reviews I've read...

Yes, you need to know some Java. This book isn't going to explain classes, polymorphism, inheritance, or interfaces to you -- it expects that you know what they mean. But simply working through a few Sun trails or a Java-in-24-hours type book will be enough.

Also, if the phrase "multi-tier application architecture" sounds like a foreign language phrase, then this book isn't really focused toward the obstacles that you're currently dealing with. A good chunk (about 1/2, I'd say) of the book is meant to clear up how to use these technologies in a multi-tier environment. If you don't know what one is, then a lot of the book is going to seem irrelevant.

But if you do know what "multi-tier" means, and you have understanding of the technologies, this is the book that fills in the gaps involved with integrating them together in a single solution.

Simply put - a must have for the serious web based application developer! Rarely (if ever) do you find a gem such as this, which serves as an unparalleled reference guide for the Java architect, provides a leg up for experienced software developers looking to delve into writing web applications using Java, as well as gives web designers some insight into server-side programming with Java. Nowhere else have I seen a work, in such a practical manner, fully explain Java web application architecture and how to implement JSP and servlets together, and apply them beyond HTML, to create XML documents and files and even applications for the wireless web! Also, where else do you find all this as well as indepth coverage of security, EJB, CORBA, and RMI?

Do not buy this book unless you have:

- A very good knowledge of the Java language - Some experiemce doing HTML pages - A good idea about how a web server applications work

Because the book will not bother to explain any of these points. It contains some good tips and highlights about JSP and servlet programming, but the subjects are so loosely organized that it cannot even be considered a tutorial on them. Part of the blame is to be attributed to the subject itself: it is a rapidly evolving one and there is not yet a standard way to address many of the issues covered in the book. But anyway ...

For example: by the middle of the book the author realizes that, after going through dozens of servlet code examples, he still hadn't told you how to invoke them! Then he presents a by all means insufficient half-page outline.

For example: There are some appendices about web servers, where in the web they are and how to make them work. If you know your way through web servers, these appendices are useless, if you don't, they are insufficient.

I am not saying that the book is bad, but after going through the previous reviews you may think that this book will transform you from an application developer into a web developer. Not so. It is aimed to a very specific kind of public that know their way into web programming and are looking for some conceptual highlights. By no means a tutorial or a structured reference.

I've never been so happy to find a book as I've been to find this one! If you're like me, this is the perfect book for you, and from what I can tell, it's one of a kind.

I'd seen books on Java (servlets), books on JSP, books on XML, and understand the concepts of presentation/application/data layers for web applications. Unfortunately, all the books seemed to treat these techonologies as if they were stand-alone solutions. The clear focus of this book is how to get these technologies to work together to provide an elegant, modular, and easily maintainable solution to application problems.

Even in the first chapters (basic JSP application), the book is already laying out it's primary theme. It specifically draws your attention to the way the JSP's use Java in two basic areas. The first half being the creation and manipulation of objects, and the second half being the presentation of the data. It then explains that in a few chapters you'll learn that the top half should be in a servlet and the JSP should focus on the second half.

IRT some of the other reviews I've read...

Yes, you need to know some Java. This book isn't going to explain classes, polymorphism, inheritance, or interfaces to you -- it expects that you know what they mean. But simply working through a few Sun trails or a Java-in-24-hours type book will be enough.

Also, if the phrase "multi-tier application architecture" sounds like a foreign language phrase, then this book isn't really focused toward the obstacles that you're currently dealing with. A good chunk (about 1/2, I'd say) of the book is meant to clear up how to use these technologies in a multi-tier environment. If you don't know what one is, then a lot of the book is going to seem irrelevant.

But if you do know what "multi-tier" means, and you have understanding of the technologies, this is the book that fills in the gaps involved with integrating them together in a single solution.

This book is more than I expected to get from a text on JSP and Servlets. It will suffice if you need a reference but is much more powerful if you want to build real world apps using Java and the Internet. Some of the best examples are Building a Wireless Application, Creating On-the-Fly Graphics, and Using EJB. Also has good chapters on using CORBA, RMI, and XML from JSP and Servlets.

The author gives code for the examples so it's easy to get your own site up and running with a few changes here and there. I also like that the explanations are more conversational than most tech books so it's enjoyable reading.

This is an excellent book for someone who wants to learn more about JSP and Servlets. There are great chapters on handling form data, working with cookies, using the Session, Request, and Response objects, Model-View-Controller (MVC), writing data to a database, and creating a shopping cart using JSP and Servlets. This book will not teach you JSP and Servlets, but it will give you good examples of practical solutions to common everyday web programming issues using these technologies. There are even chapters on 3-tiered programming using JSP with RMI, CORBA, and EJB. And there is an added bonus of getting to build a wireless web application...very cool.

OK, before this the two top ones for JSP were:

1. Core JSP and Servlets (Marty Hall)
2. Web Development with JSP (or something like that)

My fav was NO. 1 above because of its lucid descriptions. However, QUE has a winner ...this book is probably the best of all if you wish to get started! Usually I am a fan of Wrox books, but in the case of JSP, these two (Using.. and Core..) take the cake.

I am a hardcore PHP and Perl fan (and a liberal dose of Python too) so I am "into" scripting languages. This is one book that will help you if you have been planning to either make a switch or find out what this whole JSP + Servlets craze is all about.

I did not like the books that started out with the assumption that you read Java books like comics and feed on Servlets for breakfast...in this book, the first code is actually 1 line!

Superb, keep it up.

I normally don't write book reviews but I saw this book had some poor reviews and felt it necessary to add my two-cents worth. This is probably the best servlet book I've ever read and I've read several. The book explains obscure points that aren't entirely clear in the specification itself and cautions against problems that aren't obvious unless you're a very experienced programmer. It also provides lots of invaluable suggestions for those of us trying to figure out exactly how the J2EE architecture should be implemented. If you're just learning servlets, Java, or web programming you probably want to start with a simpler book.

Correct cover of Servlets and JSPs issues and the relationships between them. How to work with each one, and how to combine them in different architectures. Also a good and useful explanation of the MVC paradigm and good examples of web applications develpment.

MVC design pattern in J2EE is explained well.