Struts Kick Start

I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to get a practical, working knowledge of Struts in a short amount of time. It also gives clear advise and recommendations on design issues and technology choices not only for using Struts and JSPs, but also on integrating with back-end databases, Enterprise Java Beans systems, and Web Services systems.The book develops a practical Struts application, including database integration, that walks through all the real world development stages from design to deployment, highlighting best practices and key issues at each step. While doing all this, the book is brief and to the point. This keeps it fast moving and interesting while providing a useful working knowledge of Struts. The authors provide clear recommendations on many issues. Design or technology options that exist at various points are highlighted and the trade-offs identified, but the authors do not get bogged down in technical digressions at these points, but rather state their recommendation with their reasons and then refers to other resources for the reader who wishes to delve into the issues further.In addition to the basic Struts application, the conceptual background is clearly laid out and chapters on the details for all the Struts tags are provided. Another highlight of the book are the chapters on advanced topics of integrating Struts with Enterprise Java Beans and with Web Services. In a brief amount of space, these chapters walk through all the steps to set up and run an example application that can serve as a model for real world development. Again, all the key design and technology decisions are highlighted and explained.A big plus with this book is that all the example applications and the technology products needed to set them up and run them are included on the CD that comes with the book, so you can be sure you are working with the exact same software and setup that is documented in the book.

This book fills a major gap in the Struts literature: it shows you how to solve real-world problems using Struts. If you want to learn the details of how Struts works, you need a different book. However, if you're sick of wasting an hour every time you need to figure out how to use an html tag you've never used before, this is the book for you.I'm learning Struts so I can use it to write a commercial application. I didn't buy this book until I had finished the first two modules of my app, and I really regret it. I remember wasting 3 hours one day figuring out how to use in conjunction with to render a lookup table from my database. I'm pretty handy with Google, but the fact is, there's not a lot of solid information out there about how to use the Struts tag libraries. This book contains the exact code I needed - I could have copied it into my JSP and been on my way in less than a minute.It's obvious to me that Turner and Bedell struggled through Struts the way I did, and decided to write a book with all the answers once they figured the answers out. They did a fantastic job. They cover all the aggravating details you're going to face writing real apps, and they explain the solutions clearly and accurately.Bottom line: After reading the three major Struts books, I can tell you that none of the books alone will get you where you need to go. I recommend "Programming Jakarta Struts" for learning Struts theory, and this book for learning how to get real work done.

I disagree with the other reviewers that are complaining about the example applications or lack of advanced features. I think books that have examples that are too complex or advanced get away from helping you learn the basics because the examples are too complicated to read quikcly when you are in a hurry. With Struts Kick Start, I can go right to the place in the book that explains the specific thing I'm looking for quickly. I've looked at all the available books on Struts and I own three of them. Struts Kick Start is the one I have found the most useful in helping me learn because it provides the best coverage of the basics of Struts and has many more coding samples for the struts tags than any of the others. The others refer you to the site for struts tags or just seem to replicate what is already on-line. Struts Kick Start explains each one in detail and gives sample code that you can cut and paste to use on your own. It also provides some great examples of unit testing and build scripts that I've been able to put to use without too much pain. This is a great, useful book.

Kevin and James have done an excellent job breaking Struts down into manageable pieces with clear, detailed examples. Often books pump you with information with no real world examples, not only are they dull, but they're often confusing. Struts Kick Start has a great mix to keep the reader on his/her toes. There's usually a thick fog clouding the path to the true power of new languages and standards, Struts Kick Start helps to lift that fog in a timely manner! I'd be lost without it, definitely worth the [$$].

Struts Kick StartI started learning how to use the Struts framework in late in 2001, after I became fed-up with hacking web applications together with the digital equivalent of "Duct-tape Engineering". At that time there were no books available for the budding Struts developer, "Read The Fine Manual" was not an option ... you read the website, you read the code or you asked questions on the mailing list. This situation finally changed this fall with the release of a flurry of titles dedicated to Struts. I present here my thoughts on one of the latest: "Struts Kick Start".What is Struts?Struts is a framework for developing web applications. It is a distilation of the current set of known best practices into a working code set that can be extended to meet almost any web application requirements. It part of the Jakarta Project at the Apache Software Foundation.What do I know about Struts?I have been developing web applications, using Java, for four years and using struts for over a year, and am a regular participant on the Struts mailing list. I was also a technical reviewer for one of the other Struts Books released this fall and was recently invited to speak at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire on the use of Struts.What's good about this book?There are many excellent things that I could point to. I particularly like the obvious depth of research that accompanies this book. There is a very interesting history of the development of the MVC design pattern and they even name the inventor. Do you know who invented MVC? If you want to know, buy the book!The chapters cover everything that you will need to know, in the order you are most likely to need to know it. There's even a chapter explaining the "struts-config.xml" file's DTD! (You may want to skip that on the first few readings :-)There is good coverage of the Struts taglibs. I see a lot of questions about these on the mailing lists, so this information is very timely and it looks very well explained.I like the coverage of other open source tools that work well with Struts. This is an important point because Struts does not do everything for you (by design), so there will be areas that will benefit from other tools. I'm looking forward to trying out some of their recommendations and easing my own Struts development lifecycles.What's not so good?Just one niggle, and it's more of a programming style issue, but in their example code they have references to their business objects. They explain that it is important to separate out business logic from action logic, which it is, but then proceed to use their business object within the action.Now, I realise that example code is not the same thing as robust, production-ready code, but when people are first learning a language or framework, they tend to copy exactly what they see in the book they are learning from. Even though example code should be light on error checking (for reasons of readabilty), it should be heavy on correctness and good style.Sh