Jakarta Struts for Dummies

I've never written a review before but I have to say that this book was so good that I wanted to help spread the word! Prior to reading this book, I've never worked with Struts at all but found myself needing to learn it and write a full fledged application in little more than a week to land a new job. Within a week's worth of time I was very well versed in Struts and managed to create a very robust Struts application to demonstrate to my interviewers. I managed to get the job and have this book to thank for it!! Some details about the book are: it's based on Struts 1.1 but not too worry as it will give you a great foundation for newer pre 2.X versions of Struts (the foundations it lays down will help with the learning curve for Struts 2.X as well I would think), this book also takes the reader through the entire development process from setting up an IDE (Eclipse), to the basics of setting up a database, and all demo code is fully explained within the book and readily available online. I would also like to add that I've read a GREAT deal of technical books and none of them have even come close to this book.. it really is THAT good. I only wish all books were this good!! Buy it today and you will NOT regret it!

Thank you Mike, Ellen. You did an excellent job. This is one of the rare technical books that I enjoy

I was surprised at how clear this book is. I was expecting less from a "for dummies" book. I had to get a struts-based web application up and running in four days flat and I bought both this book and the more highly regarded "Programming Jakarta Struts" by Chuck Cavaness (an O'Reilly book). I used both books, but relied extensively on the example applications in the "for dummies" book. When crunch time came I found myself consistently turning to the "for dummies" book. Frankly, I thought it was a darn good book.

I like the Dummies books. OK, so I'm not sophisticated, professional, or even very smart. But so many computer books seem to forget the first twenty pages that explain just what the hell you are trying to do. Perhaps the Dummies books take 40 pages to explain what could have been done in 20, but that's not a problem. I can read fast. It has often happened that I first read a Dummies book and then once I'm deep into doing something with that language I need to go get a more complete Bible type book. I haven't gotten far enough into Java yet to know if this is true, but my newest task is moving a web site over to Unix (BSD), Postgre, Apache, and Java Servlets to provide server side dynamic pages; I don't have the time to read a Bible on each one of these. This book, along with some other Dummies books is getting me started a lot faster than I thought possible.

Wow - these 2 authors do an excellent job of introducing a user to Jakarta Struts. I'd recommend a little familiarity with Java and web-apps. Also, you'll need to have the latest version of J2SE - 1.4 or higher (otherwise code won't compile correctly - at least that was my experience).All the source code is available online.This book covers Struts version 1.1. Some books only cover Struts 1.0 - be sure to check. Struts 1.1 has many new features - you'll want the latest.Another bonus - they introduce working with Eclipse as the IDE, and detail how to do so. Eclipse is a powerful alternative to JBuilder, and free.I'm fairly new to Java (more experience with .NET) and found this book very well written. I highly recommend it.