Beginning JSP 2: From Novice to Professional

First of all: I did like this book. It gave me an easyly accessible introduction to all this business around using Tomcat. The author took quite some trouble to explain every related technology (HTML, CSS, SQL, OO, Java ...) in some detail. Sometimes you want to read through it to get reminded, sometimes you want to skim over it and sometimes even to skip it. But it is good that it is there. I do not know if you can actually grasp those related technologies, if you never saw them before. For me the rehash was helpful on all the cases I needed them. The core topics of the book: JSP itself with its expression language und standard tag libraries were very well explained and easy to grasp also for a first timer like me. I now do have a good feeling for its core topics and their whereabouts. I only got lost (a little) in the last chapter about Struts. There is seemingly so much overlap to other technologies (EL, JSTL, home grown Beans) that I did not succeed to get a clear picture of when to use what.

"Beginning JSP 2?" Yeah, right. Try: "Beginning JSP 2, HTML, JDBC, Java, JSTL, XML, XSLT, XML DTDs, XML Schemas, Servlets, Filters, with some MVC (Model 2) and Struts thrown in for Good Measure." While my recommended title may be a bit too long to be practical as a book title, it would better capture the materials covered from an introductory level, in "Beginning JSP 2." In about 360 pages, through 10 chapters, this book covers the technologies listed above, describing what they are, what they do, why folks are using them, how to use them, and how they relate and work with other technologies. Following these action packed chapters, the appendixes serve as great quick references on JSP syntax, implicit JSP objects, and various XML configuration files. To nitpick a bit: The book could benefit from some more aggressive editing, in parts, where sentence and paragraph wording is occasionally a little clumsy, and a few good-to-understand details were left out. The description on the back cover of the book says, "All you need... is a basic understanding of HTML and Java." I suggest this be corrected as follows: "All you need to know in order to follow and understand the lessons in 'Beginning JSP 2' is enough HTML to create a 'Hello World!' web page, and enough Java to create a 'Hello World!' application." On second thought, even if you can't do those things, yet, after reading this book, you'll be able to do a whole lot more.