Learning Jakarta Struts 1.2: a concise and practical tutorial: A step-by-step introduction to building Struts web applications for Java developers

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6 responses to “Learning Jakarta Struts 1.2: a concise and practical tutorial: A step-by-step introduction to building Struts web applications for Java developers”

1. 

   Neil Roberts

   February 1, 2014

   7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

   
   Defeats its own goals, April 24, 2006

   By 

   Neil Roberts (Des Moines, IA) –
   
     

   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   This review is from: Learning Jakarta Struts 1.2: a concise and practical tutorial: A step-by-step introduction to building Struts web applications for Java developers (Paperback)

   The author goes in to some detail about the philosophy of the book, how he intends to present it as a “action” oriented book, rather than a list of instructions. That’s fine, but the actions that he presents are terrible.

   I bought this book mostly to see what’s changed since Struts 1, which is what I’m familiar with. I’m somewhat familiar with Struts 1.1, I’ve messed with DynaActionForm and some of the new validation features. So I know what Struts is capable of… and it’s not this.

   Struts is an excellent controller (the C in MVC), and it has a lot of really handy tags that you can use in your JSP pages. Where the author completely misses the mark is that he concentrates so heavily on the tags and very little on what makes Struts really powerful… its controller. That’s not to say that he only concentrates on tags, he goes into great detail about integrating a database, writing a properties singleton, and other garbage that has nothing to do with struts.

   He frequently uses a jsp page as the URL to visit to access a page. A good Struts implementation should rely COMPLETELY on Struts as its controller. This means that all of his pages should have been *.do pages. Not only does this allow for pre-render logic, but it means that you can switch out what JSP page you want to use without having to change your URL. It’s pretty much the foundation of struts, and yet it’s completely lost here.

   Another thing I found missing was action-specific forwards. His action tags were almost all single, closed <action/> tags with no content in between. He opted instead to use global forwards for everything.

   I’m not a genius, I obviously have something to learn about Struts if I’m still buying books. But Struts is about making things clean, abstracting the Model 1 grossness that JSPs introduced. This book is a piecemeal organization of some capabilities of Struts. Not only is this book lacking on any high-level struts capabilities, but I think it actually teaches bad programming.

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2. 

   Srihari Mailvaganam

   February 1, 2014

   6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

   
   Making Learning Struts Easy, November 28, 2005

   By 

   Srihari Mailvaganam (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) –
   
     

   This review is from: Learning Jakarta Struts 1.2: a concise and practical tutorial: A step-by-step introduction to building Struts web applications for Java developers (Paperback)

   Jakarta Struts is a framework that helps in developing and maintaining web applications. Struts really shows its potential with larger web applications when multiple developers, UI artists, content specialists are working on an application.

   And maintaining a Struts application is a breeze in comparison to JSP/Servlet configuration. The challenge with Sturts is the complexity in understanding the framework – the framework itself is not terribly complex but it makes it seem like a tedious way to develop a web application. Many developers start off learning Struts with a ‘Hello World’ example and are not terrible impressed by what they have to do to get it going.

   Mr. Wiesner’s book makes learning Struts much easier – as the benefits are given in examples upfront. Most readers loose interest if the benefits are not demonstrated and that is a great lost to the Struts framework.

   This book is suitable for a reader who is familiar with Java/Tomcat and would like a great introduction to Struts. The examples lead a reader through setting up a Java web application and tips on enhancing productivity with Struts.

   Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions regarding the review.

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3. 

   Thomas Duff “Duffbert”

   February 1, 2014

   6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

   
   Does well to get you quickly coding in Struts…, September 24, 2005

   By 

   Thomas Duff “Duffbert” (Portland, OR United States) –
   
     
   
     
   
     
   
     

   This review is from: Learning Jakarta Struts 1.2: a concise and practical tutorial: A step-by-step introduction to building Struts web applications for Java developers (Paperback)

   If you already have a Java background and are looking to learn how to use Struts for web apps, a good concise tutorial title would be Learning Jakarta Struts 1.2 by Stephan Wiesner.

   Contents: Introduction to Struts; Hello Struts; The Struts Shop; Internationalization and Taglibs; Logging and Configuration; Forms; Logic; Exceptions; Controller and Templates; Putting It All Together; Struts Validator and Plug-In Classes; JSTL; Tools and Tricks; Solutions; Glossary; Literature; Index

   This is a 200 page tutorial that assumes a basic background in your IDE of choice and Java in general. It’s written well, but there’s not a lot of hand-holding going on. The author dives right in and brings you up to speed on the concepts you need to know to work with Struts. The associated platform choices are all open source (like Tomcat and MySQL), so it won’t cost you anything to get started. Conversely, the coverage of these other software packages aren’t covered in great detail. You’re told where you can download the software, and quickly how to install it. If you have problems, you’ll probably need to check out other sources to fix them. The book follows a common development project throughout (a book store application), so it does a nice job of building on itself as it goes along. Couple that with the exercises sprinkled throughout the book, and you should be able to learn enough to become competent on the basics. For long-term Struts work, you’ll probably want to get a Struts reference book or check out the project website. Still, as a first book to learn by doing, Learning Jakarta Struts fairs well…

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4. 

   Martin R.

   February 1, 2014

   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

   
   Excellent tutorial for beginners., November 7, 2013

   By 

   Martin R. –

   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   This review is from: Photoshop CC: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

   Excellent tutorial for beginners. Well thought out and practice examples provided. Publisher support site available. I recommend this guide to newbies.

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5. 

   Al Kunz

   February 1, 2014

   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

   
   A view of the facts, January 5, 2014

   By 

   Al Kunz (Emerson, NJ United States) –

   This review is from: Photoshop CC: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

   Hallelujah!!! A Photoshop book that indicates new or improved Photoshop features! Throughout the book you will find a red star within the Table of Contents or within a set of text telling the reader that this is something new or improved in the Photoshop program. It is astonishing how few books on this subject provide this.

   Having begun this review on a happy note let me further the notion that it is an excellent text if you are the kind of person that likes to have all of the facts. There are books on Photoshop that instruct the reader to do this, and then do that, etc., to achieve a certain goal. Well, this book will also instruct you in a similar fashion but will also furnish you with much more detail to foster a good understanding of why you are doing this or that. In fact, in addition to the paper book, it will also give you the ability to download an eBook or PDF version of the complete text, and, at no additional charge. Thus learning need not be limited to the computer on which you have Photoshop installed. But first, let’s look at the hard facts about this book.

   Visual Quick Start, Photoshop CC (let’s use PSCC from here on) is a 520 page paper back volume. It lists for $39.99, however, as of the writing of this review, it sold on Amazon for $31.33. A Kindle edition is available for $16. The Book Level is rated at Beginner/Intermediate, a rating with which I would agree with more emphasis on the more experienced Beginner. The authors, Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas, in addition to being prolific authors, are also designers and have taught the subject at a number of prestigious schools of design. Addition-ally, the reader can download many of the photos used in the book, so that you can follow along with the lessons using the same photos.

   As I alluded to in the beginning of this review, this is a book for people who learn by doing as well as by inhaling all of the pertinent information about a procedure, process or whatever is the subject matter being studied. It is a no-nonsense book that gets right into Photoshop CC in all of its phases. There were a considerable number of instances where I learned something new or at least new to me. After a few of these, I went back to Photoshop CS5 which also resides on my computer and invariably, that feature or process was on CS5 as well. The point here is the fact that all of the previous books that I had read on CS5 did not contain any information on these nuances of Photoshop even though they were part of the program. It is also evidence that the authors of this book on PSCC are not leaving anything out because it is from a previous version of the program. For beginners, that is a crucial point. As a beginner, you want to learn all you can about PSCC even though the information may be old to a veteran. You can see why the book is 520 pages long. It is because it is comprised of a considerable amount of information about its subject. Also, as stated previously, it is a no-nonsense book that eschews flowery language and gets right to the point. This fact may be a stumbling block to some beginners who have no experience with programs like Photoshop.

   The book covers all phases of Photoshop CC including Adobe Bridge and Cam-era Raw. It then provides good basic sections on Workspace, Panels & Presets, Pixel Basics, Layer Essentials Selections & Masks, History and Using Color. This is followed by what many Photoshop users consider to be the reason for its existence, namely, Adjustments. This is a prologue to all of the creative phases of the program with a number of sections that I won’t list here. One of the last sections surprised me, but in retrospect, made me realize what a clever piece it was, all in one place. It was a section on Preferences. If you have ever used a computer, you realize that every program has a number of preferences which enable the user to direct the program’s responses in a manner in line with the user’s work-flow. Well, you can imagine the number of preferences Photoshop embodies. Well, here is section listing all of Photoshop’s preferences (including Adobe Bridge) in one place. That’s almost worth the price of the book.

   I’ve spoken about this book’s ability to educate the new user but it also has considerable value as a reference tome. Its Table of Contents and its Index both provide a very useable look-up facility. It is fairly easy to find a wanted subject within the book in short order.

   In summary, I found Visual Quickstart Guide, Photoshop CC to be a fact filled book. It may take a little longer to get through it but the reader will be much better prepared for all that Photoshop CC can offer. For the experienced Photoshop user, it offers much information as a reference manual in a very useable size.

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6. 

   Anonymous

   February 1, 2014

   
   My Favorite, January 9, 2014

   By 

   Van (Virginia) –

   This review is from: Photoshop CC: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

   I’ve had access to quite a few of the general books on Photoshop and like this one best. The approach here is different from most. First the author covers Bridge and Camera Raw. Then the Photoshop toolbars and menu choices. So when you actually start to do some work in Photoshop you’re doing it within an overall context with which you’re familiar.

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