Rating: 
Summary: Covers many 1.1 topics
Review: I like this book for many reasons. First, it touches upon many 1.1 issues. You could probably learn 1.1 pretty well by downloading many examples. However, the author attempts to illustrate many best-practices. I'm not sure I agree with all of his attempts at best-practices, but at least some creative ideas are expressed.I downloaded the example software, and it was of marginal value. I own another Struts book called "Mastering Jakarta Struts" by James Goodwill... don't buy it. I can't definitively say that this is THE Struts book to buy, but I don't think you'll be wasting your money on this one either. If you're a Struts developer this should be in your library.
Rating:
Summary: Must have for all web developers
Review: I bought this book along with the one by Sue Spielman. Both books have been extremely helpful. I like the O'Reilly book because it covers details that apply to real applications, not just prototypes or small...ones for school. The coverage of logging, exception handling, the model coverage in chapter 6 is worth the price of the book. One of the best books that I've ever purchased.
Rating:
Summary: Good coverage but could be better
Review: The target for the book is any experienced Java developer who is interested in Struts but has little or no experience with Struts. The book starts with an explanation of why Struts is a "good thing" and shows how Struts fits into a web architecture. The author then gives an explanation of each of the pieces of the Struts architecture and demonstrates a simple application. Although the explanations were clear, I felt that the author was making the architecture overly complicated by explaining things out of order. A diagram showing the interrelationships of the different Struts classes and config files would have been helpful. The author covers all the expected topics such as internationalization, exception handling, logging, and the Struts tag libraries. The chapter on the Struts tag libraries could have used more examples to make the explanations clearer. The book concentrates on Struts 1.1 and the author does a nice job of explaining the changes from the 1.0 version and the features available in the new version. The chapter on the new Validator framework is clear and the examples are on target. The chapter on Tiles is short but the author does a great job of explaining how it fits into the Struts architecture. The chapter on performance seemed completely unnecessary since there was nothing in it specific to Struts. Overall this book is a good addition to the Struts library. The book has some shortcomings but it provides a good deal of value.
Rating: 
Summary: Best book for beginners
Review: I learnt struts from scratch with the help of this book. Buy it!!
Rating: 
Summary: INTERESTING, BUT EXPECT SOME HITCHES
Review: Although the approach used in authoring this book is not very cogent, there is something good about it. The book presented detailed information on how to manipulate such Java technologies like Servlets and ServerPages. There are also grounded tutorials on how to create multi-purpose Web applications.
However, instead of making the sample codes available in the textbook, the publisher decided otherwise: opting to make it a downloadable option on her website. Again, most inexperienced Jakarta Struts programmers may find the haphhazard details of DyanActionForm a bit cumbersome.
Rating: 
Summary: Lot of holes
Review: The book is organized in a strange way. When I was looking at one example, the essential parts would not be explained until a few chapters later. Lot of details are left out (like some of the attributes of the config file were not explained). It seems that the author assumed you knew it already. A lot of time was wasted in hunting for the information back and forth in the book and sometimes I need to go to the Struts site to find out. A lot of frustration.
Rating:
Summary: Impressive from beginning to end
Review: This is the best technical book I've ever read, by far. It's packed with nuggets of wisdom that extends beyond Struts and into programming in general. I would say that it's an advanced book and covers many advanced concepts, but those just starting out with Struts will learn alot as well. The only downside is that it doesn't touch on security within Struts, which is one of the places that I'm stuck. I've read the reviews here and someone else mentioned cover security in a 2nd edition. I would strongly encourage it be covered in the next edition. This is not something that gets talked about in any of the other Struts books in enough detail. Please do. Other than this one flaw, the finest book on Struts available. I can't recommended it enough if you are using Struts in your daily job like I am.
Rating:
Summary: A little disappointing...
Review: I rely heavily on O'Reilly books because they generally provide complete, understandable, and easy-to-read information about any topic. Because I have come to expect so much from them, I was a little disappointed with this book. The coverage is good, but not great; and I definitely would not recommend this book for someone looking for a complete reference. Instead, I would recommend the Wiley book, Mastering Jakarta Struts. It provides step-by-step instructions for developing a Struts application from scratch, and all code samples are downloadable from the website. It also has complete references for each of the configuration files and the major taglib libraries.
Rating:
Summary: Lacks breadth and examples
Review: I bought this book thinking it would provide greater depth than the previous book I bought on Struts. I was also looking for details on the many tag libs and examples of complex ways of using them. The book is great at providing high level understanding and explaining the basics. However there is little to no example code, no details on the many taglibs, not even an appendix on the taglibs. The book is helpfull, however once you've got the basics down, you can set the book down for good. Needs example code and details on taglibs desperately.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite what I had hoped for
Review: I'll admit that I'm a little new to Struts development, and I was expecting something that would take me through the use of Struts in minute excruciating detail - and this book works sometimes and fails others.
I believe that the framework is well suited to help developers accelerate the build process, but if you're looking for a book that takes you through the entire process, look elsewhere.
Another thing that really annoyed me was not presenting ALL of the sample code in the book. You can download it from the O'Reilly site, but you shouldn't have to - it should be presented along with everything else.
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