XML, XSLT, Java, and JSP: A Case Study in Developing a Web Application [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Westy Rockwell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
As a Web Developer, you know the challenge of building robust applications on multiple platforms. Creating truly portable applications becomes possible by using Java for code and XML for organizing and managing data. "XML, XSLT, Java, and JSP:A Case Study" will help you maximize the capabilities of XML, XSLT, Java, and JSP in your Web applications.

The author, Westy Rockwell, uses the hands-on approach of a case study to show you how to use these technologies in realistically complex situations. All the tools used in the case study are free, so you can obtain them and join the author in a real open source web chat application, available online and with the book CD-ROM. This book provides you with the information you need to fully utilize XML, XSLT, Java, and JSP in your web applications, and presents it in a practical and unique way through the case study.

With "XML, XSLT, Java, and JSP: A Case Study," you will learn how to:

-Build web applications based on XML, XSLT, Java Applets, Java Servlets and Java Server Pages

-Set up a Win32 Web application development environment based on the Java(TM) 2 SDK and freely obtainable, open-source software products from Apache Software Foundation: Tomcat, Xerces and Xalan
(*Note all of these items are located on the CD-ROM attached with the book so you don't have to take the time to download)

-Use XML as a language to express the architecture and design of the application itself, not just its data content

-Create a browseable user interface for your web application with JSP

-Use an Http Servlet, beans, and JSP custom tags to implement and control Web applications

-Make and deploy a Java Applet to control and refresh your Web application user interface

-Utilize Xerces and Xalan for XML and XSLT, to provide dynamic content to a Web application.

-Experiment with new techniques for XML storage using Java objects

From the Publisher
It is our vision to bring you the Voices That Matter with our publishing and Westy's book is certainly in that realm. He's passionate about his work and has something of value to say and it shows through in his book. He's a voice of value! We here at New Riders have worked hard to bring you something useful and helpful in your search to learn more about web development. As always, we want to hear what you have to say about the book so please feel free to contact us directly at [e-mail].

-New Riders Publishing

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Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press (July 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735710899
• ISBN-13: 978-0735710894
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,854,747 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A poor attempt at a case study, December 18, 2001

By	Thomas Paul (Plainview, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are some books that are published that you wonder why the publisher went through the exercise. New Riders should have rejected this manuscript. It claims to be a case study of XML, XSLT, and JSP but it isn't. It is a confused and confusing discussion of the author playing around with technology.

The author wanted to try out some ideas so he decided to write a chat program. But there is no real design effort (you won't find a single UML diagram anywhere) so it is difficult to understand precisely what the application is supposed to look like. Without any real design, the application ends up with one servlet of over 50 pages and another of over 40 pages in length. (The book is inflated with 300 pages of source listings that are unreadable.) As a case study in how to do bad design and write awful code, the book can serve as a warning perhaps. As far as actually trying to explain any of this technology, the author admits that isn't the purpose of the book. In a case study you like to hear of problems encountered or the different solutions attempted but you won't. No mention is made of security or performance. The code itself is useless and can't be used in other applications because it is so poorly designed. The author admits that huge chunks of code need to be refactored.

Overall this book fails to provide any real value.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars not what I thought, August 31, 2001

By	Gerald McDonough (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews

I bought this book hoping for an advanced and detailed comparison of 2 java server architectures: XML/XSLT versus JSP.
It is not a comparison, or a tutorial, or an analysis of any kind. It is simply a meandering report of the author's experimention with miscellaneous technologies. No conclusions are reached. No pitfalls are described. Topics like performance and extensibility are not even touched. XSLT is only mentioned in passing as an approach that was not followed. XML is only discussed as an application's data store; a mildly interesting exercise that most certainly would not be used on any production web site. Lastly, over one third of the book is source code print out.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a waste!, September 10, 2001

By A Customer

Complete waste of money. I hate beating up authors, but this is nothing more than a dump of a software project from work. As such, there is little comparison-contrast, discussion of design choices, or benefit-pitfalls of the design. Don't expect to extract information from this text to apply to your own projects.

I feel the publisher should put this book in a "out of print" status to save customer heartache. Did New Riders even review this book before releasing?