Pro Jakarta Struts, Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: Okay book, Not great
Review: Bought this after seeing so many good reviews.
This is a okay book. May be 3 stars.
Lots of room for improvement.
Every rating with a 5 star - Sure sounds fishy to me

Rating:
Summary: Lots of info, example vague
Review: I believe this book is full of good Struts information however the idea that you will learn it by building a sample application is just not true. After setting up a development structure in chapter two the author leaves you on your own to figure out where to put the files your creating or modifying. Although you can figure this all out on your own it detracts and distracts you from focusing on the real details he is trying to teach you. Also there is no readme.txt in the downloads from the apress site as is written in chapter two. All in all this is only an average text for learning struts due to the lack of direction with the examples.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't take you anywhere beyond basics
Review: I purchased this book after seeing so many 5 star reviews for this book only to be thoroughly disappointed.
Ironic it is named Pro Struts. Didnt take me anywhere beyond the beginner level, far from making me a Struts Pro.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Solid, Thorough Book
Review: I work in a small consulting company and when our "Struts" expert moved to Minnesota I thought I had better get a book on Struts to brush up because I knew it would be only a matter of time before I needed some Struts knowledge. I scoured the reviews of the various Struts book s here at Amazon.com and finally settled on this book. And I am very happy I did.

The first chapter of the book gave me a few concerns. The wording seemed a bit naïve, but I got past that chapter and found a real gem. The reminder of the book was well written. The chapters were laid out in a logical progression. The examples had enough depth to convey their point, but not so complicated that you would get lost. And there were a minimum number of typos (I think I found only one in all the source code). A single application is developed through the entire course of the book applying the newly gleamed knowledge as you go so your understanding is constantly being reinforced.

I think the most significant positive about this book was its thoroughness. When the authors had presented a solution that worked they didn't stop there. They identified what would need cleaning up and what could be improved. And then they showed how to achieve it by continuing the example! The cleanup was often performed utilizing common design patterns and best practices. They even spent considerable effort pointing out when anti-patterns were rearing their ugly heads and what you could do to avoid/minimize them or eliminate them.

I don't think this book made me an expert in Struts, but I am very comfortable now. I feel like I have a good understanding of how Struts works and where I would turn if I needed more help. I think a more advanced book on Struts is in my future, but this was truly one of the better computer/programming books I have read. And I have read quite a few!

If you are looking for an introduction to Struts then I would highly recommend this book. If you already know Struts and are looking for an in-depth reference book, I don't think this is the right book. This book is definitely slanted more towards the beginning Struts developer.

Well done!

Rating:
Summary: Good best practices book
Review: I'm missing a chapter about modules

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't stop where Struts 1.1 leaves off
Review: Pro Jakarta Struts, Second Edition by John Carnell with Rob Harrop is the best book on developing Struts-based web applications I've read. (I've read at least five or six others.)

The title of the book is a bit of a misnomer, as it covers much more than just Struts 1.1 fundamentals. This book aims higher, including chapters on web application Patterns and Antipatterns, XDoclet, Velocity and ObjectRelationalBridge, along with the good explanations of various Struts-specific topics.

Pro Jakarta Struts, Second Edition is a pretty thick book at 578 pages. I didn't notice a single page wasted to printing some API. It isn't really a technical cookbook to be placed on a nearby shelf for quick reference during development to look up the basics of using some technology. Instead, the authors focused on good practices used when developing web applications, including explanations of why a technology should be used and how to use it, recurring problems that others have experienced (Antipatterns) and what to do instead (Patterns), and other pieces of advice designed to get the reader's brain thinking in web applications.

If you're in the market for a book on Struts-based web applications, get this one. It covers Struts 1.1 well, but it doesn't stop where Struts leaves off.

Rating:
Summary: Flashy terms for developer common sense
Review: The book packages developer commonsense as patterns and anti-patterns with some flashy names such as Tier Leakage, Data Madness etc. Nothing much of value here. Looking for serious Struts stuff? Just move on.

Rating:
Summary: Very high-quality content
Review: This book is fantastic because every example and scenario is given from the an excellent context: Each tool or idea is presented as a way to achieve proper OO and system design.

There are no stupid examples, which would never be a good base for real development.

There are no laundry lists of classes' APIs, whether the method calls are relevant or not.

The authors seem to understand that in the real world, knowing what the various methods of a framework do is only half the battle. Knowing how to use it is the other half.

Even if you don't need the education in design patterns, they are the context for all the information, and so really tell a working developer what she / he needs to know.

Rating:
Summary: Very high-quality content
Review: This book is fantastic because every example and scenario is given from the an excellent context: Each tool or idea is presented as a way to achieve proper OO and system design.

There are no stupid examples, which would never be a good base for real development.

There are no laundry lists of classes' APIs, whether the method calls are relevant or not.

The authors seem to understand that in the real world, knowing what the various methods of a framework do is only half the battle. Knowing how to use it is the other half.

Even if you don't need the education in design patterns, they are the context for all the information, and so really tell a working developer what she / he needs to know.

Rating:
Summary: Not focused enough
Review: This book offers too much discussion of general software engineering. I suppose an enty-level developer might find that useful. I just wanted a book that teaches Struts, from "Hello, world" to the dirty details. If you already know the benefits of n-tier applications, much of the text is a waste. If you already know the value of design patterns, and how to apply some, then much of the text is a waste.

I found the Wrox book, Professional Jakarta Struts, to be much more focused and useful. That book sticks to the topic, and provides very good reference information on the configuration file and tag libraries.

Having said that, I did find the chapter on XDoclet to be useful.