Customer Reviews

Web Development with Java: Using Hibernate, JSPs and Servlets

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The rapid changes in Java web technology have left a morass of outdated books. So it is refreshing to see this book using Java 5 annotations, JSP 2.0 with its EL (expression language), and Hibernate 3 annotations both for validation and for persistence. Unfortunately Spring is not covered, causing home-grown solutions for some things Spring could do. I didn't see any real errors in concepts, but there are gaps and statements that depend on the specific case being considered, where this dependency is not clear. For example, there is a statement on pg. 157 that only Hibernate can set the primary key for a row, but this is only true in the @GeneratedKey case in use in this example.

The helper code has no comments and scanty explanation. Some bad practices are in the code, such as HTML by generation by Java printlns and swallowed exceptions. Of course a teacher can fix up localized problems, so this book could be used in a web apps course, and has almost no competitors for a textbook there. It has questions and "tasks" at the end of each chapter, a first for such books in my experience. It covers the basic user interface techniques you need for a simple web app, and a little about multipage apps and MVC organization. There is nothing about a service API, or any layering in the app.

Pulled down the Kindle edition of the book and at first glance I was happy with the book. When you get into some of the later chapters from about 6 on, the book stops being a "type this in and run it" to see how it works which I fine very helpful when trying to learn a new technology. I've even went to the website to pull down the example from there thinking that I missed a step or two only to find that the not all the code is in its complete condition which did not help in the understanding of what the chapter was trying to accomplish.

If you are looking for a book that started with a basic web app and allowed you to add code building on the code that came before progressing to a more advance web app, I don't think this is the book of for you. I did get some useful information from this book but I was hoping for more.

I got my hands on a copy of this book, and I couldn't stop reading it. This books is really well written, its clear and understandable, a very rare feature in J2EE books.

If you are looking for a book to learn the basics of Web Development using Java, this is the one for you, it guides you through complicated concepts such as JSP-Servlets interaction, formerly-cryptic web application directory tree, with so much ease.

I highly recommend this title to all the developers/students/java enthusiasts that want to learn how to do Java Web Programming. Advanced programmers might find it somewhat basic, but still a very good conceptual reference.

This is a great book for a niche audience: Students who are familiar with the Java language, but not with Hibernate (a popular library for storing objects in databases), JSPs (a format for embedding Java in HTML pages--the book does not assume previous experience with HTML) or servlets (Java code that interacts directly with HTTP requests). It is, in short, a comprehensive textbook on the subject, well-suited to undergraduates who have taken only a course or two on programming.

Those with prior web development experience are more likely to be interested in learning about a particular architecture. Few web applications are being developed with JSPs and servlets these days; instead, most use something like Spring MVC, Struts, Wicket, or the Groovy-driven Grails (my personal choice), all of which have fine books dedicated to them. Typically, these web frameworks act as a layer on top of the servlet layer, greatly simplifying the architecture. Learning to use servlets first might help to better understand the more high-level APIs, but it's probably unnecessary. If you want to jump right into creating professional-grade web applications for the Java platform, I'd suggest The Definitive Guide to Grails.

This book is a great book if you are new to Java web development and you want to get up to speed on the fundamental technologies (like jsp, html and servlets) quickly. The chapters are short and the explanations and examples are so clear and concise you could probably learn the basics of constructing a web site in less that a week if you put your mind to it.

The only issue I had with the book was I did not think the Hibernate chapters were as clear as they could be. For that I would recommend Cameron McKenzie's book "Hibernate Made Easy" which does a better job of walking you though the setup and use of Hibernate.

I have almost finished reading the book.
It is clear, the examples help you understanding the mechanism of a web application.
It is a straight and concise introduction to web applications: in an affordable number of pages you can have the basic tools for starting, I trust in the best way.
There are some references to libraries which are not immediately clear and the evolution of the web application with unclear changing of the name of the packages but finally, I found a book which made me able to understand a java WEB application.