Struts in Action: Building Web Applications with the Leading Java Framework

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!

This book did a great job explaining to me not only *what* Struts is and *why* I should use it but also *how* to use it. This is something I found lacking in the O'Reilly book, Programming Jakarta Struts. In addition to the coverage on Struts, this book extends into areas like proper MVC and Layered design principles that are very important to apply if you wish to get the most out of the Struts framework. Of course a full treatment of MVC, layered design and other enterprise web engineering best practices are outside of the scope of this book but the authors have plenty of references so you can fill in gaps in your knowledge as necessary. I have read many technical books, and few were as well thought-out and thorough as this one. If you are using Struts, this is the book to buy!

I am not sure if the most recent reviewers read the same book that I read. Struts in Action provides the gamut of simple to detailed information about the Struts framework. Additionally, the goal of the book is not to provide complete examples but to use pieces of code to actually show examples of the information that Mr. Husted is conveying. There comes a point where being spoon fed is something different than learning.For those who need a complete application for an example might I suggest "Professional Struts Applications: Building Web Sites with Struts, Object Relational Bridge, Lucene, and Velocity". That book builds a complete web app as its premise. Again, the goal in Struts in Action is to provide the details of how to approach the MVC way of doing things using Jakarta Struts. The use of additional toolsets like Scaffold comes from the experience of the author (as evidenced by stuff in the Struts mailing lists and Resources page).I keep going back to this book over all the other Struts books simply because it provides information and examples of details that I am trying to figure out while building apps. As with all things in the open source world things change and fluidity is a beautiful thing. To refute one reviewer in particular I must point out that when this book was published Hibernate was not industrial strength code. I am using Hibernate now on some apps but don't blame Ted for not giving every solution to every problem...

After reading the O'Reilly Jakarta Struts book I started reading this one. I have about one year of Struts experience so I am not quite starting. The difference between the two books is striking. This book gives you all the nuts and bolds and puts the whole Struts framework in the conceptual context it deserves. O'Reilly's book is a good book for starters but does not really leave the surface. So it is good to start out with but you really should move to this book to get the work done!

That's what I love the most about this book, it doesn't just talk about how to configure and develop with Struts. It's a web application manifesto. Anyone can write a book about how to use Struts to build a web application. That's not the point. This book is ~8 people-years worth of first-hend developer knowledge (4 authors x ~2 years of working on the Struts project) condensed down into 630 pages. It doesn't just teach you how to use Struts (and Velocity and Taglibs and Tiles), but why you should use them. That's the most important thing this book has to offer. If your project is looking at using Struts & other Jakarta technologies, you need this book. If your project is currently using Struts & other Jakarta technologies, you need this book