Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Book
Review: These guys put together a wonderful book, I've read it twice and find it not only an excellent reference to Struts 1.0,1.1 and Tiles, its also a great introduction to using web app frameworks in general, and general J2EE framework design and best practices. You start out with a high level overview of Struts, then drill down all of the topics that make up the framework, Actions,ActionForms,Struts-Taglibs etc...Lets face it, every web app framework you come across is gonna basically boil down to the Command pattern, this book is a great way to kickstart your understanding of Struts and the topic in general, which you can then use to bridge out from into any framework you come across, webwork,turbine,custom in house, whatever. In short: A great book on Struts and frameworks in general,in a style of writing that makes it a fun read.
Rating:
Summary: just the book for opensource-savvy developers
Review: I read thru a number of Struts books in order to understand how a couple of other frameworks like Tiles, Validator and Velocity gel with Struts, in short I wanted a deeper understanding on the framework of frameworks, I was left feeling I am trying an exercise in futility. Gladly and thankfully this book left a quite different impression, it explains the Struts innards really well, marking out the differences between V1.0 and V1.1, building the foundation thru detailed idiot-proof examples, and then gets down to the goodies. I agree with some other reviewers in that the number/density of examples go down as you get along, and I disagree with them in that that's a bad thing. Remember, unlike many other books where you can decide to read chapters in any order, this book would add most value if chapters are read sequentially from start, they are already logically organized and one builds on another, and once you really go thru the first few chapters understanding them thoroughly, I mean not by only reading them but by writing your own code along with, you would NOT need the idiot-proof examples to grasp the meat of the later chapters, once you got the foundation right you can easily get the feel of it. This is not a 'for idiots' book and I would like to thank the authors for keeping it that way, you have enough information in the book to understand the Struts framework (and then some) pretty well, but you gotta take your hands outta your pockets and write some code! I liked the way Tiles, Validator and Velocity has been explained, keep up the good work Ted!
Rating: 
Summary: Not A Good Introduction
Review: I knew nothing about struts before picking up this book. I know just a little more after having read all that I can stand of it. The book provides very little example code and what it does provide is just in little snippets that don't really help. I'm halfway through the book and I can't take any more theory without being able to get some basic examples running. I consider this book more of a reference than a learning tool. I am abandoning it in favor of a different book. If you're new to struts, look elsewhere for a good introduction.
Rating:
Summary: downhill...
Review: As other reviewers have said this book starts out great with a couple examples that lay out the main features and advantages of a framework like struts. I personally like to learn by example (is there another way?) and did like these examples even though I am no big fan of frameworks ( I prefer to start from square one so that I am sure I understand 100% of what I do and also feel that everything I do is exactly like I want it).
Unfortunately the book soon changes in an encyclopedic-style
review where examples are scarce to non-existent, explanations
very confuse ( I could check this lack of clarity and method looking at the presentation of concept that are absolutely familiar and clear to me like MVC or Tag Extensions or JSTL ..
well the book explanations were horribly dull and confusing )
and often to understand the subject presented you should have
knowledge of matters presented later in the book.
In conclusion I think this bok might be marginally useful to someoone starting out with Struts .. so if you find it on your colleague's desk open it.. but as for shelling out the $$$ to buy it.. you would be better off investing in ice-creams...
Rating: 
Summary: yes, Yes, YES, OH.... what a letdown.
Review: I purchased Struts in Action because the web contains horribly incomplete and obtuse information about struts. I have to search through three or more sites to find what I'm looking for, and then test and wonder if I got it right. After reading the reviews I thought this book thinking would be right on the mark, and after reading the first couple of chapters I was going to write a glowing review but.... So close. It's a great book with 1/3 of the information missing. The big picture is here, it's just not explained fully, or pieces are left out. Struts in Action starts beautifully, explaining the struts-config files, the details behind the struts-basic app, and an excellent later chapter about struts-tiles. This book just falls flat extending and scaling this knowledge in any depth. I was hoping for DETAILS about the struts taglibs, and I was let down by how it glosses over even some of the less granular points, such as what are the important and more oft-used attributes for each tag, and multiple examples of these tags in use (i.e how does the html:text tag use labels? How do I set a static checkbox to selected? Why was the html:form tag left out of the appendix?). It seems that the author just assumes that once you know the basics and go over the code, you can do anything. Well, that's why I was reading this book, because I expected it to be full of examples and code. He does such a fabulous job with the config file, and then loses focus. Still, out of the current Struts books, Ted's is BY FAR the most detailed, authoritative, and useful, and for these reasons worthy of an extra star. I'd still recommend this book, but unfortunately it's only as complete as the typically incomplete information on the Jakarta site. If you know nothing about struts, this will get you going. If you already know something but want to extend your knowledge in breadth and depth past the struts-config, you may be let down.
Rating: 
Summary: Struts in Fiction...
Review: A lot of pieces of code extracted from context..and without real working examples ..it should have title
Struts - The Best practises ,for some one who handled the base. I think title "Struts in Action" is misleading...I thought there will be base example introduced on the beginning and continually extended in every chapter by the theory to the end . There is only one example on the beginning and one the end ... complex... At the present there is so many products on the market what we(as developers) have to study that fast learning curve is essential.
I have read a lot of books about EJB last time...and may be I was lucky that I got good booksand I was immediately able to write EJB and run the code on JBOSS and WEBlogic what are more complex as the Struts I think...as well Head First EJB from Kathy Sierra and Bates was excelent from pedagogical point of view ...for certification as well Rod Johnson J2EE Design and Development... It is not easy to write a good book.One think is be perfect software architect and another good teacher...
It could be improved if autor in the next edition
will add more pictures with workflow -arrows with sequence numbers and working code in Example.war s for every chapter.
I wouldn't call it "being spoon fed " but "time saving" and time is money....
This way he can make really valuable book.
Rating:
Summary: nice presentation of the struts framework
Review: When I started to use struts, 2 years ago, there was hardly any documentation to be found (other than the docs and examples on apache's site). This book came at the right time and provided many answers to the problems I was facing and gave me a good overall understanding of the struts framework. However, this is not "the perfect book" and the domain it covers is very dynamic so if you want to be successfull with struts you HAVE TO follow the discussions on the struts mailing list (I found most of my answers there) and even to pick at the source code. I recommend the book as a good starting resource.
Rating:
Summary: useful but needs improvement
Review: There are so many books on Struts out there these days that it is very difficult to find a good one. I tend to learn best by example, so I found this book useful. I think it could be improved in two ways:
1. Examples can be more cohesive.
2. Authors should not resort to a proprietary toolkit in their presentation.
Rating:
Summary: Better than most, but no Struts book seems to cover it all
Review: When I needed to learn Struts, I went first to the online doc, but found it wanting. I then went to the O'Reilly book on the subject, assuming it would be as good as other O'reilly material, but it just wasn't. I did my due diligence and picked Ted Husted's Struts in Action, and I haven't regretted it at all. It covers what needs to be covered, in a methodical logical fashion. Sadly, this is more than I can say for most tech books, not just the ones on Struts. Virtually every Struts book I looked at covered some things I didn't want to know about and left out stuff about things critical to me. Struts in Action was a valuable learning tool and continues to serve as a great reference.
Rating:
Summary: A good solid Struts tutorial
Review: Struts in Action is a good book that has some flaws. I had this book pre-ordered on Amazon from the minute I heard about its publication. The lead author Ted Husted is very active in the Struts development community and still manages a great Struts resource site. I read the book right away and spent a few weeks going over all the examples in the book. My overall feeling is that this is a good book but it suffers from a lot of the same thing that affects other Struts book. These books were published right around the release of Struts 1.1 and so they are on the fence where they talk about Struts 1.0 and 1.1. Since I had used Struts 1.0 before, the sections that described the changes from 1.0 to 1.1 was very helpful. Like other books, there is some mention of JSTL but not any details. The section on tag libraries is extensive and well written. I just went through all my Struts books again as I had to teach a 6 week class on Struts. I went through the five Struts books I owned and I settled on 'Programming Jakarta Struts' by Chuck Cavaness as my finalist. Struts in Action is really a good book but I felt the Chuck Cavaness did a better job of acting as a tutorial. So if you only want to buy one Struts book, I would recommend the Chuck Cavaness book. However, if you want more than one, I would highly recommend this book as your second book on Struts.
| 
