The author vaguely addresses much of the subject matter. He definitely tells you which buttons to click on to complete a specific type of exercise but, makes little effort to tell you what goes on behind the scenes and why your putting components where they are (doing this would be signficant improvement, rather than assuming the reader has this knowledge).

I had a problem with this book because each example in most of the chapters built on previous chapters, which I didn't need or want to do.

As a result the source code was incomplete for each chapter (no WAR files etc.) For example, Getting the code to run for chapter 10 required following every step in 3 or 4 other chapters that were not relevent to creating a JSP. To make matters worse I had to go back and figure out where these steps were in what previous chapters.

The book takes on too much (or needs another 500 pages) and as a result misses explanations for critical concepts and operational procedures.

A simple complete unique PROJECT example zip for each chapter would be a huge improvement, at least then we could figure it out ourselves.

A message to the Author: Go checkout "Professional IBM Websphere 5.0 Application Server". This book goes the extra distance that it takes to make the process of learning WSAD as easy as possible. Yep, it costs twice as much as your book and takes twice as long to read (it has the extra 300+ pages) but, you know the old saying. You get what you pay for. By the way I have no connection with the folks that wrote that book (their IBMers), never met 'em. I'm an Oracle bigot.

I apologize for the drubbing, but it's my honest opinion. I know the old saying about opinions...

The author vaguely addresses much of the subject matter. He definitely tells you which buttons to click on to complete a specific type of exercise but, makes little effort to tell you what goes on behind the scenes and why your putting components where they are (doing this would be signficant improvement, rather than assuming the reader has this knowledge).

I had a problem with this book because each example in most of the chapters built on previous chapters, which I didn't need or want to do.

As a result the source code was incomplete for each chapter (no WAR files etc.) For example, Getting the code to run for chapter 10 required following every step in 3 or 4 other chapters that were not relevent to creating a JSP. To make matters worse I had to go back and figure out where these steps were in what previous chapters.

The book takes on too much (or needs another 500 pages) and as a result misses explanations for critical concepts and operational procedures.

A simple complete unique PROJECT example zip for each chapter would be a huge improvement, at least then we could figure it out ourselves.

A message to the Author: Go checkout "Professional IBM Websphere 5.0 Application Server". This book goes the extra distance that it takes to make the process of learning WSAD as easy as possible. Yep, it costs twice as much as your book and takes twice as long to read (it has the extra 300+ pages) but, you know the old saying. You get what you pay for. By the way I have no connection with the folks that wrote that book (their IBMers), never met 'em. I'm an Oracle bigot.

I apologize for the drubbing, but it's my honest opinion. I know the old saying about opinions...