Tomcat Kick Start

Rating:
Summary: Solid
Review: Along with Jason Hunter's "Servlets" and Marty Hall's "Core Servlets", hard to beat in useful tricks per ounce: servlet listeners, DAOs, URL rewriting, custom tags. Except for some errors in chapter 5 (the downloaded web.xml is missing some tags), all the examples run.

Rating:
Summary: How to install and administer the Tomcat server
Review: Apache Jakarta Tomcat is a Java application server, the open-source equivalent to BEA's WebLogic Server. It's also the official reference implementation for Sun's JSP and Servlet technologies. As the official implementation, millions of Java developers learning JSP need instruction and practical advice about Tomcat. However, there are currently few books and limited online resources to explain the nuances of JSP development using Tomcat. Tomcat covers Tomcat4.0.3 and 4.1,the latest versions developed for the current JSP and Servlet specifications. Tomcat Kick Start starts with the essentials of JSP and Servlets, and then explains how to install and administer the Tomcat server. Further chapters discuss how Tomcat enhances application development with tag libraries, error logging, filters and valves, and more. It includes the use of the popular Apache Struts framework and Apache XML processor. Later chapters explain advanced concepts such as Tomcat security and integrating Tomcat into larger J2EE applications. 552 pp. User Level: Intermediate

Rating:
Summary: Get going quickly
Review: I think this is a very good book.

Some who wrote in were expecting A and got B. A lot of books on the computer field are long on theory and short on practice. Tomcat Kick Start is more of the reverse, shorter on theory and longer in practice. This can frustrate someone who is expecting a lot more theory.

One of the commenter's says, "Basically, this book tries to demonstrate how to develop enterprise applications on pretty weak examples, and this does not help you learn how to do these tasks in a generic manner." I disagree with this comment, many people do learn by example. Lots of people don't like to wait and read and read and read, then try something... I think the Tomcat Kickstart appeals to the impatient. And the simplicity of the examples encourages users to try things. I think this is a great way to get going quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Get going quickly
Review: I think this is a very good book.

Some who wrote in were expecting A and got B. A lot of books on the computer field are long on theory and short on practice. Tomcat Kick Start is more of the reverse, shorter on theory and longer in practice. This can frustrate someone who is expecting a lot more theory.

One of the commenter's says, "Basically, this book tries to demonstrate how to develop enterprise applications on pretty weak examples, and this does not help you learn how to do these tasks in a generic manner." I disagree with this comment, many people do learn by example. Lots of people don't like to wait and read and read and read, then try something... I think the Tomcat Kickstart appeals to the impatient. And the simplicity of the examples encourages users to try things. I think this is a great way to get going quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of Money
Review: If you ever worked in software engineering you will really regret buying this book. It looked to me like this book was oriented to the "Ididot's Guide To ... " readers who want to be 'Enterprise Developers' in 24 hours. Take for example their explanation of how JSPs are deployed in the Tomcat server:
"1. Create a new Web application directory in Tomcat's webapps directory; call it basic-jsp.
2. Create a subdirectory called WEB-INF in the basic-jsp directory.
3. Copy Listing 5.1 into a file called date.jsp ...
4. stop and restart Tomcat ..."

That's it! See, to deploy any JSP in Tomcat you just have to copy Listin5.1 into date.jsp file and put it into the basic-jsp directory!

Basically, this book tries to demonstrate how to develop enterprise applications on pretty weak examples, and this does not help you learn how to do these tasks in a generic manner.

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: The Tomcat Kick Start text is a wonderful book when one wants to setup and run a J2EE server. The text goes over Servlets, JSP, Tomcat Administration, database connectivity, etc. Everything is bundled precisely into one nice book. It's a great purchase for anyone running or interested in running Tomcat.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of Money
Review: This book only touches the important subjects on the surface. This book is not good for someone who seriously wants to learn tomcat. It does not discuss most important parts in detail except for the installation.

For me, it was a waste of money and I had to buy a another book called Mastering Tomcat Development, which is a great book for beginners and experienced tomcat users.

Rating:
Summary: nothing useful here
Review: This book provides a lot of overly simplistic examples, and does not provide any explanations of how to get anything done. For example: instead of describing in detail what is involved in setting up a server, this book provides instructions without explanations for setting up a specific example - leaving the reader wondering how to adapt these instructions to different situations (beyond your basic 'hello world' example).

The book is too high level to be useful for a developer or admin. I tried using it to get up and running with a new project, but honestly got absolutely nothing useful out it.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: This is a decent book - I have to congratulate the authors and editors in trying to keep each topic cohesive and self-contained. However, a chapter or two on integrating with J2EE App Servers like JBOSS might have been useful.

As a book author myself it is a challenge to pick examples that can be listed on a page or two supporting the topic of the chapter. So given this the choice of currency conversion example is probably o.k though for some it might look simple. Important thing is not the examples but the JSP/webapp constructs and facilities available that are being illustrated through the example. If you read CSS by Owen Briggs - he has an interesting approach to keep the reader attention on the concepts and not on the examples - the text he uses for displaying using different style sheets - "Lorem impsum dolor sit amet. ..."
So some reviewers concerns about better examples may be uncalled for.

This is a good book for someone who is familiar with Java and want to come upto speed with JSP/Servlets/Struts and those familiar with JDBC but wanting to migrate to using connection pooling available with commons-dbcp. I would expect such person to find things on their own after reading this book. Many time being impatient I used Google only to find tons of search results and wasted time reading crowded blogs/bbs when what I was looking for was right in the book - the best way to use this book - don't sit before the computer - finish readng a chapter and then try the examples in the chapter - it works straight.
I would have preferred if the authors included ant build files with each chapter and also some explanation on how to integrate tomcat with JBOSS.
Being written in 2002 it is still valid with Tomcat 5.0 - but an updated version would be timely and can also provide some information on other webcontainers. They could have picked a different cover image = it looks like a mechanical or aerospace engineering book .