Customer Reviews

Struts: The Complete Reference (Osborne Complete Reference Series)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

From the perspective of someone who already has a few books on Struts, this book has proved useful. It has a chapter on using modules, with Tiles and the Struts Validator - the first book I've seen that does so. It also talks about the JSTL and its comparison to the standard Struts tag library, which it also has a good reference on. As this book probably went to press before JSP 2.0 was finalized, it wasn't noted - the Struts EL tag library is not required with Tomcat 5.

I have only one real con, and one niggle. There is no mention of database access, not even a coment on best practices. The tutorial/sample app uses hard coded values, with a comment that a real app would use a database. The niggle is that it notes 'Covers Struts 1.2' on the cover, but I couldn't find anything inside the book that suggested what 1.2 has over 1.1.

If you have some older books on Struts, or already use Struts but want to see what the hype is about with Modules and the JSTL, then this is a great book. I'd prefer to give it 4.5 stars, as the lack of data access notes bothers me a bit. Other than that, it's a great book.

I primarily bought this book for 2 reasons. One, after having seen other good reviews on this site about this book and two, to get to know more about the tag libraries used in Struts applications. Unfortunately, what i find is that this book has succeeded in putting the long "not so user-friendly" tag library documentation available elsewhere, and that run endless down browser windows into a book form. In my opinion, Struts as a technology centered around MVC is not so very difficult for a seasoned Software Developer to understand. What this book fails to explain is the usefulness of tag libraries in building the " CODE-FREE VIEW" component of a Struts-based application using tag libraries. Once i got into the chapters about tag-libraries, the pulse with which the book takes off with, begins to die twice as fast. The author(s) make(s) (a) very feeble effort in linking "variable scopes in JSP" and their connection to tag libraries. Now, i 've kept this book aside just to serve as a reference to a tag and/or its properties. In a nutshell, it's back to building traditional JSP views for me.

The book is a good beginners intro to the subject. After reading the first few chapters, you will be equipped and itching to move on to one of the more detailed text that aren't as friendly - like Struts in Action - that will give you the skills to actually build something useful.

You should also spend a little time getting a grounding in custom tags before you get involved with trying to learn Struts -you will get much better insight into what is going on behind the scenes - because that's essentially what the Struts framework is really all about.

This is the newest book in my collection of web development books (about 20 at last count), and only one other book "HTML, the Definitive Guide" has seen more abuse.

I attribute this to the fact that the book is designed to be a reference, not stictly as an introduction to the framework.

The chapters are easy to read and walk you through the framework in a very understandable manner.

The examples are built from real-world solutions.

Having never seen any STRUTS code prior to buying this book, I was able to start coding apps utilizing STRUTS very quickly after reading it.

This book is not at all "complete" as a reference.

For example, "The Struts Tag Libraries" part lacks some critical information, such as the various rules for parameters used in each tag. You could waste a lot of time trying to figure out why your <html:options> doesn't do what you want, only to find out later at some website that you were missing one parameter (which the book fails to mention).
Examples in that section is nice, but too basic.

Indeed, Apache web site offers better reference [...]

That being said, it WAS a good introductory book on Struts.
It helped me a great deal to get familiar with the technology.
It would've been more stars if it focused on the introduction part, under a different title.

this book covers the basics of struts, the validator package, and tiles. However, once you learn the basic concepts of struts, the single mini hr example (ie, "hello world") is not enough for you to be able to write a real world app. You need to go somewhere else. This book is for beginners only. For 50$, I think you're money would be better spent on other books.

I found this book to be a good introduction to the Struts framework and now use it as a day-to-day reference. I also found the book to have more coverage of areas of Struts that some of the other books didn't have, like a chapter on testing and security.

I use this book to get started with Struts and reference any time I have a question with Struts. This is very good book!

From 0 to flying height in no time.
First time I read a Java / Struts book which is so clear
And so comprehensive, all thumbs up!!!
Turn the reading into an enjoyable mission

This book is a very good read for people who are getting started with Struts. Instead of pouring over theory it jumps right in with code you can get going with, then each chapter gives step by step instructions related to the original example app. Very thorough book. I recommend it to others.