Rating: 
Summary: good book, ok reference
Review: it's pretty good book, doesn't repeat itself, I was programming in servlets before, and just wanted to refresh my memory and find out what other technologies came out for web programing. This book did the job. I believe it's also good book for the beginners. Doesn't show you a lot of tricks though, just straight up, but has a lot of code examples.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely Good Book
Review: i thought this book was a great book to learn servlets and javaServer pages. It is very detailed as well as being complete and simple at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Good Book
Review: I think this book is one of the greatest books to learn servlets and javaServer pages. Besides being organized well, it's very detailed and simple at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: indispensable
Review: In the jungle of java books, it is very difficult to find a good book. This is one is which is worth each penny of its cost.For rapidly changing java world in my opinion choice of a book should be dependent on following factors: a) timing - should be of latest or close to latest version. b) lots of example code - so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel c) very focused - should not add pages by providing more than required reference to sun's API. Like other developers, I try to read about the book beforehand by going to B&N or local library and then buy it if it is indispensable. For this book I would like to say: a) this is current, covers JSP1.1 b) gives you enough example code to design web pages using technology other than servlets. c) gives a in depth understanding of servlets and jsp which is required in troubleshooting. This is very important because lot of run of the mill books give you toy code, but no core understanding of the subject. For successful project I can't even dare touch a subject without knowing what goes behind the screen. This understanding is essential when deploying applications on server like websphere/weblogic.
Rating:
Summary: Will Servlets & JSPs remain longer or will become absolute
Review: Hi, I am java developer...In this fast growing IT industrywhere technologies are rapidly becoming absolute, i only wonder ifthis Servlet & JSP technologies will remain. If this technology remain for long term then i would definitely buy the book as it contains very good topics.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Book
Review: This is another excellent web programming book from Hall following Core Web Programming. It explains not only servlets and JSP but also beans, JDBC and the Java Web Server. Must have for any serious web programmers using java technologies.
Rating:
Summary: This really is a good book.
Review: I just finished reading the serlvet part of this book. I could not help writing a review since this really is a very nice book. The book is structured in a very clean and easy-to-read format. You don't have to be a java expert to read this book. The instructions are so clear that you can't miss a thing in setting up Tomcat, JRUN, or running the code examples. I used Tocmat. All went well. I read this book like a novel from cover to cover. It was a very good experience. However, you should at least know the basics of Java before you read this book. This book is the first step toward J2EE. I will definitely buy the updated 2nd volume of this title that is geared toward advanced Servlets and JSPs. This is one of the best Java books I have ever had.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book but where is the the second volume?
Review: This is a great book on learning Java Servlets and JSP development. Even though I have been a Java Servlet developer for years I still refer back to this book when I forget how to accomplish certian tasks. If you are new to Java Servlets then this book will get you up to speed pretty fast. Especially with the MVC design pattern and development with sessions, cookies, etc.
My only complaint is the advanced features of Volume II still are not available. The author states he will cover JavaServer Faces and Struts in a Volume II which never seems to make it to the publisher.
Rating: 
Summary: Inconsistant and Padded
Review: There is some very good information in this book. The section on building web apps using a Model-View-Controller aproach is excellent and answered just about all my questions about how to put the JSP system to actual use.
However, the author never identifies who his reader is, switching back and forth between novice and advanced when he sees fit. For example, he begins the book with several pages talking about why dynamic web pages are better then static, and even has an entire chapter on HTML at the back. So, this book is for novices, right? Well, no. The author only gives about a page to multi-threading issues (very common and significant in a persistant/multi-threaded application server) under the assumption that the reader already knows everything there is to know about it. I think the author just didn't know all there was to know about it.
So, the end result is a massive book with very little content for the only person who can really read it, an existing programmer just looking to put another system under his/her belt. Actually, he's pushed all the really interesting/complex concepts (custom tags, STRUTS, etc) into a non-existant second volume. He could have easilly included everything in one volume, but I suppose two will bring in more money. I'm not going to buy the second volume, if it every appears. I'm going to find ONE book that includes everything.
Rating: 
Summary: Too big
Review: While I found this book useful because it helped me finally understand what the servlet and JSP fuzz was all about (at least in its basic form), I found it excessively large. True, it contains a lot of examples with the full source code; but it is in line with the text, and makes browsing the book a bit annoying. They could have put the complete code in their web site in a browsable fashion (it might be, I didn't check) and leave only small excerpts in the book. They also repeat themselves endlessly. The good thing about a live class is that you can ask questions; the good thing about a book is that you can go back and read something you forgot or not quite understood. Repeating four or five times where the servlet files go despite having that information in a reference chapter is a bit too much.
The book could have been more helpful, had it included more references to other books and online sources. They give a lot of names, but few links.
The contents are fine, the book could easily be less than a half its size. Maybe even a fourth. I also found some of the tips they give to contradict and ignore standards and recommendations without saying why or even mentioning the fact. For instance, they mention that the user may disable cookies, but they never mention he can also disable JavaScript, not even when they make it an essential part of one of the examples (to be fair, they use JavaScript in only one example).
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