The book provides a good, basic foundation for working with Jakarta Struts from 1.1 and on. From beginner to advanced developer you'll get a good overview of what Struts is, does and some little details about the inner workings that you will benefit from knowing. Clear, concise examples make it a wonderful intro and reference.

However... the downside to the book is that the author constantly talks about and goes too in-depth into the "shoulds" of development (i.e. separating business layer from presentation, MVC etc. etc. etc.). This is not a topic for the book and results in a lot of things that could have trimmed the book down (and the cost). There's just a whole lot that he didn't need to get into that made reading it a bit of a bore at times (since it's all standard stuff everyone already knows).

Great book... just be ready to skip a bunch of sections in it.

i've just joined a new company using struts. i am a java programmer of more than 5 years but completely new to struts, this is the book i was given by my boss but i cant understand it. My main problem is that there are no good examples to follow as if the writter assumes you know struts already. In one word, disjointed.

This book should not be viewed as a tutorial. If you know nothing about struts and you want to learn, do not buy this book. You will only confuse yourself.



It makes a great reference once you already know how to use struts, but you cannot learn struts from this book - at least how to code an app.



Simply put, the author does not write this as a tutorial. It does have a running example but it is not a learning book.

This book should not be viewed as a tutorial. If you know nothing about struts and you want to learn, do not buy this book. You will only confuse yourself.

It makes a great reference once you already know how to use struts, but you cannot learn struts from this book - at least how to code an app.

Simply put, the author does not write this as a tutorial. It does have a running example but it is not a learning book.

This book explains how to program Web applications using the Jakarta Struts framework. Simply put, Jakarta Struts is a Java framework that allows Web developers to reuse convenient objects for HTTP-request handlers, server-side HTML-form proxies, etc. Struts also allows to externalize the application flow into a configuration file. This configuration can then be edited with a Struts-flow editor. The book goes into details on how to integrate Struts into a J2EE Web application, explains the mechanics of the Struts components, describes the Struts-configuration file format, covers the JSP tag libraries, and explains how to extend the framework. The latest sections cover the use of advanced Struts features like exception handling, Struts validator, internationalization, EJB support, Tiles templates, logging with log4j and Java Logging API, deployment, and load-testing for measuring Web application performance. Such a coverage of Struts is extremely broad.

This book targets Java developers willing to learn extensively about the Struts framework. Strong skills in developing Web applications with the Java language are required for reading this book. Explanations throughout the book are sparse; developers looking a Struts tutorial would be very disappointed with this book. A tutorial about the Struts framework would be better found in other books [1, 2]. IT architects are also likely to appreciate the book, as the author gives many explanations on how the Struts framework integrates with other J2EE components likes servlets, JSP, and EJB.

Personnally, I found the book hard to read, because explanations are not always very clear or unsufficient. During my reading, I permanently had the impression that the book had been written too fast. This made my understanding hard, despite the fact that I have myself written book chapters about Struts and J2EE. If I experienced difficulties in understanding this book, less-experimented readers would probably feel even worse about it. Nevertheless, I have seen many positive reviews, so maybe it only the writing style of the book that does not match my own and makes it difficult for me to understand the content.

Finally, the last critics that I will make onto this book is the author's opportunism to cover features that do not specifically relate to Struts. Examples of such features are exception handling, logging, and load-testing. These features are inherent to any Web application. It sounds to me that the author was in need to find material to pack up the book (but this is only my own impression). I think that the author would have better invested his time better covering what is specific to Struts, for example giving better explanations on Struts elements, and leaving the rest to the other books dedicated to Web applications in general. For the rest, I think the book is an interesting reference, and I give it 3 stars for that.

[1] B. Kurniawan, Struts Design and Programming: A Tutorial, BrainySoftware.com, ISBN 0975212818.
[2] U. Wahli et al., WebSphere Version 5 Application Development handbook, IBM Press, ISBN 0738499307.

The previous book I had on Struts did a poor job of... well, everything. It is called "The Struts Framework" and the main reason I bought it was because it was a manageable 150 pages long. (Am I the only one tired of several hundred page tech books?)
This bably logs in at around 400 pages and does a far better job of explaining what Struts is all about - both fundamentally and specifically. I read the first few introductory chapters and then just checked out the areas I was intrested in. The concepts were presented clearly and the corresponding examples weren't overly complex.
Probably the biggest downside to this book is that it covers Struts 1.1, and today Struts is at 1.2.9, which means 1.3 can't be far away. (Man, writing tech books and then keeping them up-to-date has got to be one tough job!)

The previous book I had on Struts did a poor job of... well, everything. It is called "The Struts Framework" and the main reason I bought it was because it was a manageable 150 pages long. (Am I the only one tired of several hundred page tech books?)
This bably logs in at around 400 pages and does a far better job of explaining what Struts is all about - both fundamentally and specifically. I read the first few introductory chapters and then just checked out the areas I was intrested in. The concepts were presented clearly and the corresponding examples weren't overly complex.
Probably the biggest downside to this book is that it covers Struts 1.1, and today Struts is at 1.2.9, which means 1.3 can't be far away. (Man, writing tech books and then keeping them up-to-date has got to be one tough job!)

Usually I consult Amazon for a book reference. This time I decided to buy this book simply because it's O'REILLY.

Well...I was wrong. While the author writes well and clear, I believe it was address to the wrong audience (for struts experts.) I found the examples to be very convoluted, and difficult to understand.

It also appears as if deadline pressures influenced the construction of this book. (but that's my assumption)

2 stars is best to reflect this book.

Guzman, Dror

Great book to learn about struts concepts. I got the book trying to follow a logical sequence buy I found a lot of theory. Very helpful for a begginer who wants to learn J2EE and struts or for a teacher. You need to complement your learning activities with a tutorial. Try the Kurniawans's then this book.

Great book to learn about struts concepts. I got the book trying to follow a logical sequence buy I found a lot of theory. Very helpful for a begginer who wants to learn J2EE and struts or for a teacher. You need to complement your learning activities with a tutorial. Try the Kurniawans's then this book.

I am using this book to come up to speed on Struts for a project where some consultants built screens and set up some rudimentary Struts programs just to make the screens work. This is what I've decided about this book based on my use of it as a reference book.

This is a good book to use if you need to gain a general understanding of Struts. It is good for the programmer who is experienced with Java, including some knowledge of Beans and Servlets, and also some familiarity with the way XML is used with web applications. The book explains the use of XML specifically for configuring Struts, but it leaves out some of the very basic details. It does the same with Beans and Servlets. It's a book about Struts though, so that makes sense.

I am giving it 3 stars based on the fact that it has helped me understand the concepts. If I reviewed the book based on how much it helped me implement Struts successfully, I'd give it 2 stars. The problem I have with this book is the lack of examples now that I have the concept. If you're looking for a good book of examples, look elsewhere.

I am using this book to come up to speed on Struts for a project where some consultants built screens and set up some rudimentary Struts programs just to make the screens work. This is what I've decided about this book based on my use of it as a reference book.

This is a good book to use if you need to gain a general understanding of Struts. It is good for the programmer who is experienced with Java, including some knowledge of Beans and Servlets, and also some familiarity with the way XML is used with web applications. The book explains the use of XML specifically for configuring Struts, but it leaves out some of the very basic details. It does the same with Beans and Servlets. It's a book about Struts though, so that makes sense.

I am giving it 3 stars based on the fact that it has helped me understand the concepts. If I reviewed the book based on how much it helped me implement Struts successfully, I'd give it 2 stars. The problem I have with this book is the lack of examples now that I have the concept. If you're looking for a good book of examples, look elsewhere.

I am using this book to come up to speed on Struts for a project where some consultants built screens and set up some rudimentary Struts programs just to make the screens work. This is what I've decided about this book based on my use of it as a reference book.

This is a good book to use if you need to gain a general understanding of Struts. It is good for the programmer who is experienced with Java, including some knowledge of Beans and Servlets, and also some familiarity with the way XML is used with web applications. The book explains the use of XML specifically for configuring Struts, but it leaves out some of the very basic details. It does the same with Beans and Servlets. It's a book about Struts though, so that makes sense.

I am giving it 4 stars based on the fact that it has helped me understand the concepts behind struts quite well. If I reviewed the book based on how much it helped me implement Struts successfully, I'd give it 2 or 3 stars. The problem I have with this book is the lack of examples now that I have the concept. If you're looking for a good book of examples, this book is not the choice.

This is a good book to use if you need to gain a general understanding of Struts. It is good for the programmer who is experienced with Java, including some knowledge of Beans and Servlets, and also some familiarity with the way XML is used with web applications. The book explains the use of XML specifically for configuring Struts, but it leaves out some of the very basic details. It does the same with Beans and Servlets. It's a book about Struts though, so that makes sense.

I am using this book to come up to speed on Struts for a project where some consultants built screens and set up some rudimentary Struts programs just to make the screens work. I am finding whatever I need in this book, and have not had to start doing frantic web searches to get more information. I recommend it.

i could not understand what they are talking about. Please dont buy this book and waste your money. complete reference is a good place to start for beginners. Jbuilder is a cool tool to develop struts application. Struts is a cool technology. Hope some one writes a great book in the future. All books are so cryptic

i could not understand what they are talking about. Please dont buy this book and waste your money. complete reference is a good place to start for beginners. Jbuilder is a cool tool to develop struts application. Struts is a cool technology. Hope some one writes a great book in the future. All books are so cryptic

I've bought this book to have an overview of struts, beeing myself an experienced java programmed for years, it would be a good choise. I was wrong! BAD choice. It's a complete mess. You don't understand anything by reading this book! "You will build up an application"... where? The code is incomplete, it jumps from one thing to another without any logic.

Stay away, there are better books on struts (any will do, I'm sure) and internet is also a good reference.

I am very dissapointed in this book, as I purchased it thinking it would give real techniques for using struts. Instead it's just like so many other technical books out there where they give top-soil kind of overviews of the technology. It may be for getting basic concepts of struts, but whenever I find myself trying to lookup up real-world solutions there are no answers.

This is the first Struts book ever published and the one I bought when I first learned Struts. Being a Struts developer himself, the author understands the topics very well. For exmaple, the MVC design pattern was explained well, and so were Struts Validation, HTML , Bean, and Logic libraries. Tiles is also covered well. However, there are some parts where he stumbled. For example, he could not be sure whether the Action class is part of the Model in the MVC pattern or part of the Controller. Therefore, I don't think you should get this book if you just first learn Struts (For tutorial, get "Struts in Action" (Manning) or, better still, the lesser known "Struts Design and Programming: A Tutorial")

Overall, this book deserves 4 stars, included in my wish list for next editions are EL and JSTL (for the View part in the MVC) and real-world examples.

It's a good book, struts is not easy to understand, this book goes into details we wouldn't study with the complex documentation at the jakarta struts site.It's worth it.

If you are new to struts this book will leave you totally confused. If you know something about struts and just want a reference, steer clear of this book. It is horribly organized. The information you want is probably scattered in ten different places.

Take this example the chapter on tags, "These two tags are responsible for displaying a set of general-purpose messages or errors to the user". That's nice - so what are the tags called? Doesn't tell you. Several paragraphs later we come across the section called "Messages and Errors" where vague reference is made to the tags called "messageNotPresent" and "messagesPresent" tags. But I still don't know what are the tags for displaying messages and errors from this book. In fact I couldn't find a list of those tags anywhere, and I read it cover to cover.

Don't waste you money on this one.

I used to get O'Reilly books based on their reputation alone. I was VERY disappointed in this title, and it makes me suspicious of all their books now.

The first edition of this book left me wondering about a good number of topcis. Perhaps I need another book to suupliment this one. I bought this book (first edition) to learn Struts. With a little help from the Struts tutorial and this book and a couple of other resources, I have a beginners grasp of things now. However, there were several intermediate subjects/problems that I ran into that this book only skims over and doesn't offer a solution too. For example: I have a single ActionForm with multiple JSP pags (a wizard-like approach). The book mentions this in Chapter 7, page 185 (First Edition) "Using ActionForms Across Multiple Pages". At first I thought I'd get the answer to the question; How do I validate fields based on the HTML form that was just submitted since the ActionForm has all the fields from all the forms? The book didn't answer this questions, it simply suggested that I "must be careful to validate only the first that are ready to be validated." Great! How do I actually do it? No code examples, no help what-so-ever. If an author is going to go to the trouble mentioning this - how about an example to clarify?

Yes, it is not a good book for beginners. However, it is one of the best struts book for experienced java developers who are interested in struts. Why is struts the king of all MVC frameworks? A good technology is supposed to take some time to learn. Do not expect to understand everything from the first reading. If you don't know anything about MVC, don't touch this book. Go find some simple tutorials on the web. Once you get your feet wet, come back for the gems inside this book. I have quite a few struts book. This one is the only one that I use all the time. I read this book cover to cover three times and then started to get the hang of it. Once your get the hang of it, you will feel that this book packs quite a punch. I am very happy with this book.

I know enough about jsp's and servlets to get them working, i feel that should be enough to start learning struts. This book's chapter's 1 and 2 focus on the benefits of using a MVC design and even though i KNOW what it is, this book explained it in a way that was extremely difficult to understand. They put so much market speak and irrelevant points in the first 2 chapters i was forced to skip them because I wasn't getting anything out of them.

After that I got a little use out of this book. It does explain about the flow of control in a struts application. But I still feel like they could have done a much better job at explaining that.

And the part that annoys me the most is the tag library section. They intentionally skip the majority of the tags struts provides. It doesn't even explain how to use the
I must give it 2 stars instead of 1 because I'll admit i do know struts better after reading this book. But I still don't know it well enough to set up my own struts application without helping the expert next door in my office ><