Programming Jakarta Struts

I have just about all the Struts books. I reach for this book quite a bit. It is a great reference book. It is well written and well organized.If you are doing serious Struts development, you should probably have both "Struts in Action" (Manning) and this book.I reach for the Manning book the most. It seems to have the most information. I reach for this book second. This book seems to be better organized than the "Struts in Action" book. None of the Struts books do a good job of Tile coverage. And there is no exception here, the Tile coverage is weak. The validator coverage is good.Chuck takes it up a level and covers things related to Struts development like performance, and logging.I've always thought "Mastering Struts" by Wiley was the most-readable tutorial-like and most suitable for novices. If you are getting started with Struts, start with Mastering Struts.

This book is a must have! I've been programming with Struts for about 6 months and I didn't want a beginners guide. This book hits the perfect level with me and covers the stuff that I wanted to know about. It's definitely not a beginners guide, although I think even beginning Struts developers should read it to save themselves time later.Here's why I'm giving it five stars:Chapter 1 - Covers MVC and Model 2 Background and TriviaChapter 2 - Covers Request/Response and Forward/Redirect InfoChapter 3 - Good overview of the framework with the Bank example (All banking code is provided, including Ant scripts)Chapter 4 - A complete chapter on configuring the web.xml and struts-config.xml (Some parameter are missing because of changes after book release)Chapter 5 - A great chapter on explaining the controller of StrutsChapter 6 - The reason to buy this book! Everything you ever wanted to know about how to build the model for StrutsChapter 7 - Dynamic Forms Coverage (Good Coverage)Chapter 8 - Tags (This chapter could have been better!)Chapter 9 - The explanation of why and how to extend Struts if neccessary for any real Struts applications.Chapter 10 - Great coverage of the declarative and programmatic exception handling Chapter 11 - Coverage of the validator framework. Also covers how to create your own rules and to use it outside of StrutsChapter 12 - Good I18N CoverageChapter 13 - Excellent chapter on EJBs and Struts (A must read!!!)Chapter 14 - Tiles, but I've not read this chapter close enough to comment.Chapter 15 - The best information available on Logging in a web application (A must read by all!)Chapter 16 - Solid coverage of using Ant to package Struts. (Ant scripts are included)Chapter 17 - Decent chapter on PerformanceOverall, each chapter covers exactly what more advanced Struts users want and need. You can't go wrong buying this book!

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.

Struts has quickly become the leading framework for developing Java-based web-applications. This book does a terrific job of discussing the various elements of the Struts framework, from the ground-up. Starting with an introduction to the MVC pattern, the author clearly defines the role of the basic elements of Struts and delves into how to model and extend these components to write real-world applications.For users already familiar with Struts, the book expands beyond the basics and discusses how to use some of the libraries surrounding Struts, such as the Validator framework, Tiles, Logging (Commons, log4j). There are great chapters on using Struts with EJBs, exception handling, internationalization, the various tag libraries that come packaged with Struts, and advanced Struts features (some of which are new to version 1.1).If you are new to Struts or are already using Struts, I have no doubt you will learn plenty from this book. (Like most O'Reilly books) It skips on providing information irrelevant to the technology, and focuses specifically on how to help you build and model clean, maintainable web-applications. Gone are the days of including JSP scriptlet code inside of your HTML (I know I'm tired of looking at it). I've used Struts to build the past two web-applications I've worked on and I have no doubt I'll use it for the next - this book will be right beside me.

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 availableI 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!