Rating: 
Summary: A Serious Review about Programming Jakarta Struts
Review: I've wanted to write a review for this book ever since I started reading the draft chapters on theserverside.com. I was one of the many who participated in submitting feedback from the very beginning and feel like I've learned so much from the material, but understand how someone might not get it immediately. This book was written specifically to teach Struts developers how to fish; it wasn't designed to fish for us. This is something the Author mentioned on the list many times. You won't find a million different ways to use a specific tag for example. Instead, I think the coverage is more advanced and attempts to strive higher than just Struts. So, here's my review for this book. I hope it helps you decide whether this book is for you or not. First the bad - This book is light on the tags section. If you are looking for every which way to use the iterate tag for example, you won't find it here. Also, the modules coverage could have been better. Of course, I think that's due to the flux that modules was in at the time of release. I don't personally hold this against the Author. The other books (especially the ones that came out before it) have the same issue. The other topic I would have liked to see covered in the book is Security. It's actually not covered in any of the books very well. Based on the earlier table of contents that the Author published, it was included. However it was posted on the mailing list that the chapter on security was being cut due to size and time. Maybe the 2nd edition will add this (hint, hint). Now the Good - This book covers so much about how to hook Struts up to a Model architecture; especially Chapter 13 (the one on EJB). I really like this chapter and have learned so much from it. The examples are clear, concise and helpful. The coverage of exception handling is superb! As is the coverage of logging (using log4j), tiles and the validator framework. The packaging chapter was very beneficial as was the chapter on I18N. However, what I liked about this book the most and what I think is the most valuable is the following:
The Author clearly has built Struts applications for real companies and it's obvious to me (at least) that he's sincerely trying to communicate what's important for the big picture. So my advice to you if you are considering buying this book is, if you want to see how the tags can be used in every situation, buy another book. Actually you'll probably have to just read the user guide because I don't think the other books cover this any more. On the other hand, if you want to learn the 1.1 features in depth and learn big picture ideas and concepts, then I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It's possible that you won't appreciate all the material in the beginning, but after you work with Struts for 6 months, you most certainly will.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I've relied on O'Reilly books to provide the gist for any number of topics but this one disappoints on a number of levels. Too much filler material (if you don't know about EJBs and WARs then you shouldn't be reading this book) and an imbalance of detail. I need to know how to enable debugging in struts-config.xml or how to specify the message properties files in web.xml, not individual attributes to custom tags; I can find those in the javadocs.
Granted it's a relatively new technology but this treatise didn't provide much more than what I could find on-line. There wasn't even decent coverage of the specifics of minLength and other validator features. Trash the fluff and stick to the details which implementors require and you might have a decent book.
Now I'll just have to buy the Husted tome. It's not like I'm made of money, you know? I just can't recommend this book to someone trying to develop a production application in "web time".
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: The only thing I needed that it did not have was how to pre-fill dynamic forms.
Rating: 
Summary: Weak covertage of Struts 1.1.
Review: Tiles, DyanActionForm and validation coverage incomplete and not used in samples. To much detail of different aproaches and why they should not be used yet leaving out some critical aproaches. I was hoping to learn best practices found by the author and not go thorough the trenches myself. Storefront sample is buggy, Banking works.
There are some free articles which have a better grasp of the subject. Coverage of older version of Struts is good.
Chapter on using ANT build tool with Struts is worth the price of the Book and the best I have seen.
Rating:
Summary: Not just a Struts book!
Review: I highly recommend this book. I have found it useful for not just Struts-related material, but programming in general. I have great respect for this author for publishing his chapters early and have followed this book from the beginning. This book covers all of the 1.1 features in plenty of depth, but also covers good strategies for building web applications that are not solely struts specific ideas. If you are building web applications, using Struts or not, you should definitely invest the money in this book. Kudo's to chuck cavaness for doing such a good job on Struts coverage as well as everything else!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Struts book
Review: I have a couple of other books on Struts, but I generally prefer this one. It's up-to-date (as of today <grin>). It has a good section on tiles, which was of particular interest to me.
Rating:
Summary: O'Reilly can do much better - this is beginners only
Review: For the last year or so I have been using Struts so I do not consider myself to be a starter. I read the book (almost cover to cover) and it is a good book. But it should be called 'starting with Struts'. Compared to other O'Reilly books (which i typically love) it does not have enought concepts and it does not have sufficient detail. What is left is a very, very good programming manual for a beginning Struts developer but a too limited resource for the more advanced strutsee. I am now going to read the Husted book, I hope to be more positive about that one.
Rating:
Summary: Struts users have found the Holy Grail
Review: This is the second outstanding book on struts to arrive on the shelves in the last month. What a treat for anyone using struts. These books really do compliment each other and, unless you are ready to write your own book on struts, you need this one too. You rarely find programmers who can provide a visual sweep in diagrams of what is happening with an application or framework. Thank God for UML, which helps some. Chuck Cavaness, however, has a knack for presenting the big picture. He clearly knows what is going on and can show it. I was thinking that after Struts in Action he would be feeling down, because that is such a good book. He can stand toe-to-toe with that offering. This is a battle of good luck for the reader. I hope there is a third book coming like these two, although I know there is not, or I would have heard about it. This is better than a very good book. I would say great book, but I don't want to sound gushy.
Rating:
Summary: An Awesome book on Struts!
Review: I read the draft chapters of this book and found the coverage to be excellent and the author's style to be very good. The material that was posted to theserverside.com was so helpful and shows that the author is comfortable with his ability to write and teach the topic of Struts. Reason why this is must have:
- Covers Struts 1.1
- Covers advanced topics
- The exception handling and logging chapters alone are worth the $$$
- Covers how to use Struts with EJB
- Is well written
- I have found no errors so far
- Published by O'Reilly (need I say more?)
- Source code for the storefront and banking apps is available I also purchased the book by Manning and like it, although I prefer the O'Reilly book a little more. The direction of each book is slightly different and actually complement each other very well. O'Reilly and the author should should for commended on allowing the chapters to be reviewed before the book is available. That takes guts and confidence. My hats off to both. Excellent book!
Rating:
Summary: Excelent book!!!
Review: This book is really great. It explains struts in a simple and complete manner. It starts with an explanation about the basics of web development with Java and motivates the use of Struts. In the sequence it gives an overview of the framework and explains how the components of the application work together.
Finally, there are a lot of well written chapters explaining details of this framework.
I surelly can say that it is a book that everyone interested in learning Struts must have.
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