Rating: 
Summary: best servlet book, great computer book
Review: Unlike most of the reviews here, I actually started using this book with only a couple of weeks of Java experience. I found the book easily readable. I use servlets on the job and any real-life problem or question I've faced has been dealt with in this book. The general introduction to servlets chapters were great for comparing the technology to CGI, and they helped convince my management that my choice of servlets was a wise one. Also, the oreilly Java servlet classes that come with the book were helpful too, and I have relied on them for real business use. Servlets touch on many other Java APIs in the course of use and it was not the authors intention of putting in everything you need to know, but just about everything you need to know about servlets. For example, the chapter on JDBC doesn't exhaust JDBC, but it will give you a taste so you can figure out how it affects servlets. The author's website which complents the book is quite helpful as well. I would suggest that this computer book covers its scope better than any other computer book I've read. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I usually approach O'Reilly books with extreme caution. They tend to be ponderous pieces of work that clobber the reader with too much detail without being helpful (or interesting). This book is a nice departure.The book covers Java Servlet programming assuming you know Java and HTML (I wouldn't read this book unless you are very comfortable with both topics). It shows good examples of the basics of Java servlets and how they are used. The book's many examples are also short and sweet (for the most part). They deliver a concept without inundating the reader with pages of code. Pictures of the resulting HTML screen are used judiciously as well. If you need to know the basics of servlets, read the first few chapters. If you need more details, Hunter provides them in the following chapters. He covers passing graphics, session tracking (an excellent chapter), some security, database connectivity (the basics of JDBC) and other odds and ends. The book is showing its age a little, but otherwise this book is a gem -- one of the few that gets everything right.
Rating: 
Summary: Bloated
Review: Like a week old dead body that floats to the surface from the murky depths. Caveat emptor.
Rating:
Summary: An essential reference text...
Review: Review
If you are starting to work in the Java world of coding, you'll quickly run into the subject of servlets. So what's a servlet? A servlet is a Java agent running on a web server that is handling requests from clients such as browsers and wireless devices. This is the most common way that you'll serve up dynamic interactive web content in applications. The browser makes a request to a web server and specifies the URL of a servlet. The servlet takes that request, does whatever is needed (such as reading a back-end data source), and then formats a response back to the browser consisting of HTML. This book will take you from the conceptual ideas of how HTTP works and how it communicates with a servlet running on the web server. You'll then learn how a servlet works and why it's such a wonderful choice for building scalable and efficient web applications. Following chapters build upon that basic framework and leads you through building a number of servlets that will show off some of the capabilities of the technology. The examples are clear and well-documented, and you will come away with the skills needed to start using servlets in your web apps. The book does not assume any particular web server, so you are free to use whatever vendor's server you want to work through the material. If you don't already have a J2EE server available to you, you can download the free Tomcat package from http://www.apache.org in order to start practicing. And why do you need this if you're a Notes/Domino developer? For the normal Notes application, this technology doesn't apply. But IBM and Lotus are pushing enhancements in the Notes/Domino framework that will allow the use of Lotus components within a J2EE framework, and that means that you will be coding servlets to generate the dynamic web content that Domino can deliver. Furthermore, if you start working with Websphere Portal (which is being pushed hard by IBM), 90% of what you code will be based on the servlet classes. This is definitely material you will need to know. Conclusion
The conclusion for this book is the same as my conclusion for the JavaServer Pages book by O'Reilly... If you want to keep moving along in the IBM/Lotus world, servlet and JSP technologies are in your future. While you may not need it right now, you WILL need it. I highly recommend this book in addition to the JavaServer Pages book. The combination of these two books will give you all you need to know in order to work in the NextGen world of IBM/Lotus.
Rating:
Summary: Definitive Servlet Tutorial
Review: We have a half dozen books on servlets lying around the office, and I've also read the online tutorial from Sun. Nothing compares in breadth, depth, or clarity to Hunter and Crawford's "Java Servlet Programming". Luckily, the second edition does not tinker with the tried and true formula of the first: brief overview, hello world servlet, a thorough overview of the HTTP protocol itself and the architecture of servlets, a discussion of thread and resource issues, and a standalone chapter on session management. Despite the 700+ pages of this book (are authors paid by the pound these days?), this core introduction remains only 200 pages and change. Each topic is presented with definitions and clear, yet realistic code examples. The authors not only provide advice on how to use servlets effectively, but also provide numerous suggestions on how to avoid common pitfalls and misconceptions. The remaining 500 pages cover topics such as security, internationalization, database connectivity and communicating with applets. Although these are not really servlet-specific issues, they are almost always present in some combination on web sites, and the authors indicate the peculiar way in which the standard Java approaches to these problems interact with the servlet architecture. Each is presented in its own clear chapter with several examples. The beauty of these chapters is that like good code, they're modular and can be read in any order. In what I think is a sensible organization, Java Server Pages (JSPs) and "application frameworks" are left for last. Both are well defined and illustrated. There's also 50 pages of reference, but frankly, I prefer the javadoc.
Rating: 
Summary: OK for beginners
Review: I wouldn't say this is an excellent book, but it's not bad. The book covers good fundamentals in its first 8 chapters for those beginning Servlets. The book also covers some useful information on JDBC and Java Server Pages. There's also some additional coverage on Applet-Servlet communication, Internationalization and Tea & WebMacro application frameworks. However some topics like JavaBeans, SSL, Filters, deployment descriptors and XML were too brief and should have been given some depth. Another dissappointment is that all examples are based on API 2.2 but not 2.3!!. The Appendix just touches on new features of API 2.3 with also a separate listing of API 2.3.
It's been 8 mths since I purchased this book. I'd suggest that starters either wait for the next edition or get something that is based on Servlet API 2.3.
Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent choice
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. It has lots of small programs to experiment with. It is easy to read. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Servlets. This book is great for a beginner. Michael
Rating:
Summary: Great book for Starter
Review: If you are new to servlet this should be first book to learn servlet.Starting three chapters are little bit confusing but if you get the point from these chapters it create intrest.Great book for professionals also.
Rating:
Summary: Gotta have
Review: This is definitely the book you gotta have if you write Java servlets. At the former application server I was at until recently, it was basically a must buy for everyone in the professional services wing of the company.
Rating:
Summary: Only for serious techies!
Review: The book needs a glossary!!!! I gave up on this book after the first 4 chapters, I found myself spending more time looking up terms on the Internet than I was reading the book. I am not totally new to Java - I have the Sun programmer certification and have been using Java for over a year at work - but the terms in this book were way over my head. The book is very confusing, the author needs to learn what a topic sentence is - tell the reader what to expect then teach it - overall, the worst book I've read in my quest to learn Java technologies. Get Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages, it is much more readable.
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