Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reference book and a great learning tool.
Review: Book Review FormTitle: Core Servlets amd Javaserver Pages
Edition: 2nd Edition
Author: Marty Hall and Larry Brown
City: Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Published Date: Fall 2003 Reviewer Name: Ravi Mahalingam
E-mail address: mravichandran@hotmail.com
Review Date: 24 Oct 2003. Please Rate the overall value of the book from 1-5 where
5=Well done! This book will be a valuable teaching and reference tool. Please rate the instructional value of the book from 1-5 where
4=I would recommend this book to someone interested in its topic. Please rate the reference value of this book from 1-5 where
5=A complete reference. I would not need any additional reference on this topic. Write a minimum of three paragraphs describing the different aspects of this book.
The author's first edition was a great reference and the second edition is a better
book addressing all aspects of servlet programming and JSP. the flows of topics is
very smooth and letting a beginner like me understand all aspects of the servlet
programming and JSP easily. the author takes the trouble to explain all the difficult concepts of servlet
programming in the easiest possible way. this is an excellent reference book and I am excited to recommend this book
to anyone who wants to learn and program using servlets and JSP. this will
book has found a place in my reference shelf. the author has taken the trouble to explain integration of MVC modeling using
Servlets and JSP. there are additional chapters about implementation of
JDBC with commercial database engines such as Access, MySQL, and Oracle 9i. this book is a great buy for the price and is a great reference book.
Rating:
Summary: This book is the reason I didn't sink
Review: I started a new job 9 months ago, the assignment was to write several large scale web applications in JSP. I am an older female with a new computer science degree in a world of 20 something peers. They refused to give me ANY tips about JSP configuration or Tomcat...heck, they even put a few obsticles in my way in hopes of watching me fail. I HAD java experience, I Had perl experience I HAD HTML web develoment experience and I had a strong desire to suceed. I hit amazon and purchased a few books one of which was this one. 9 months later my applications are center stage and receiving RAVE review and this book played a huge part in that success. No, it doesn't take you by the hand if you're not already fluent in programming of some sort, but if you already know how to build websites and program in java, this book is a great tool. It doesn't force you to use some preconceived bean idea to build a cookie cutter application, it just gives pertinent examples and comprehensive explination of the most important and frequently used parts of JSP programming. The index could be better, but over all it's a great book for new JSP programmers!!
Rating: 
Summary: The Full Monty for server side development
Review: This book is aimed at what its authors see as a shortfall in java application development. In server side generation of dynamic web pages, java is the most commonly used language. Some developers emphasise using servlets and downplay Java Server Pages. Others do the opposite. If you troll various newsgroups, you can see arguments between the two views. What Hall and Brown posit is that this debate is a false dichotomy. They offer a deeper understanding of both, and how often you need to implement both in real applications. These have complementary attributes that together let you fully implement a Model-View-Controller architecture. That is one emphasis of the book. You should find it straightforward. But the other emphasis is, I believe, more useful. They show how to implement server side applications. Everything from choosing a web container like Tomcat, to showing how your app can accessing a back end SQL database like MySQL or Oracle. The full Monty, as it were. If you are casting around for how to build an online store, say, with a shopping cart and ease of use, and you have not built one before, or you need a fresh outlook, you should study carefully the examples. In the best case, you will find templates that you can immediately modify.
Rating: 
Summary: Could Be Better
Review: This book needs a better index and clear API listings like the Core Java books. I often need a very specific piece of information and can't find it in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good way to learn the basics
Review: I found this book frustrating. Here's why: Chapter 1 only vaguely describes what it takes to configure a test environment on your system. As a result, I had to go to other books and to the web to figure out how to configure a test environment. Then, immediately after chapter 2 shows a simple "Hello World" servlet, it shoots off on a 24-page tangent that describes a bunch of stuff that's only loosely related to writing servlets. After chapter 3 shows how to get parameters from an HTML form (although HTML forms aren't described until chapter 16), chapters 4 through 7 digress into an 80-page list of HTTP headers. In these chapters, the code examples are theoretical and don't give the reader a good idea as to how these headers are used in a typical server-side Java application. In fact, as I later learned, the average Java programmer doesn't even need to understand the majority of these HTTP headers to develop effective applications using servlets and JavaServer Pages. In my opinion, chapters 10 though 14 present a somewhat misleading description of how to use JavaServer Pages. It's only after you've learned to use both servlets and JavaServer Pages separately, that you see how to integrate servlets and JavaServer Pages so they work together. As it turns out, this is the way that most web applications should be structured. In summary, I wouldn't recommend this book for anyone who is just getting started with Java web programming. If you already know the basics and you want to pick up a few new tricks, or if you need a list of HTTP headers, this book might be helpful for you. Otherwise, I recommend looking somewhere else.
Rating:
Summary: Good working examples
Review: Marty Hall's _Core_Servlets_&_Java_Server_pages_ is the best book I've seen so far on the subject (I've also read Java2 T.C.Ref., Thinking in Java, Java_Gently, Java & XML and Developing Java Web Services).
Using Apache Tomcat and his sample code as templates, I had a JSP/Servlet combination running delivering a Java/XML solution to my client in a short time.
My only critism so far is that I was able to filter a server directory using a servlet, but not in a JSP which I had to work around in the JSP indirectly.
Still, Marty's book got me and my project up & running and for that I am thankful. Previous to this the only Java training I've received is a core Java class.
Rating:
Summary: What an excellent book..
Review: There's not much more I really need to say beyond the title of this review. Marty Hall and those who helped bring this book to the development community have really released one of those books that becomes referred by developers as "the bible", such as Wrox's "Professional Java 2" and O'Reilly's "JavaScript Programmers Reference". I've had this book for over a year now, and I still refer to it constantly, for far more than servlet and jsp advice - at the moment I'm working on a PDA based PersonalJava application and the limited APIs available to me have made the JDBC section of Marty's book once more a desktop rather than bookshelf companion. If you are developing servlets or java server pages buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: I bought this book along with SCWCD Book by Hanumant Deshmukh for my SCWCD Certification, while I found the latter more useful from the perspective of the exam.. I retained this one and sold the other. This book is invaluable for any serious Web Developer.. Worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Contains the "gotchas"
Review: I'm currently using "Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages" to
develop my first server/JSP project. I must say that this book is the most informative and useful "computer-releated" book I've ever read. In addition to theory and practical examples, Mr. Hall describes the "gotchas" that most similar guides fail to mention. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: If you're already familiar with Java but have no idea what servlets or JSPs are, you'll find this book a gem. It has useful examples. With this book, you can start making servlets and JSPs right away.
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