Rating: 
Summary: Very good - but you have to be familiar with servlets.
Review: As a java software developer, who works a lot with servlets, I found this book very useful. But it really isn't targetted towards novice programmers. You need to already have some background about servlets. I found the book especially useful in teaching some of the more advanced servlet programming issues. As well as the chapter which dealt with applet-servlet communication. (There is a basic chat system sample in chapter 10 which is written using applets and servlets. I learned a lot from looking at that sample, and I also learned a lot from the problems in it..) Overal, it's a good book, but you have to concentrate when reading the book, and sometimes, even read the chapter more than once.
Rating: 
Summary: Pseudo-academic 'cookbook' versus real world pragmatism
Review: Where was the servlet application framework? Cookbooks are rarely the best source of help when you need to design and implement applications using servlets. Sure, recipies are interesting to implement and if they solve common problems in a unique and flexible manner then they are generally adopted and used. However there's nothing in this book that can be used! Previous to this book's publication there were plenty of servlet examples around on the Internet to help the novice servlet programmer. The book merely seems to serve (no pun intended) as a re-write of the examples written by many talented early servlet adopters. What is needed for servlet programmers today is a flexible, servlet application framework for multi-user, server-side application development. We don't need to see examples of servlets writing out GIFs on the fly. There are better, more efficient ways to do dynamic image generation than the method proposed in the book. The main author, Jason Hunter, is now pushing for the adoption and integration of servlets with XML and XSL. No doubt the emphasis will be on their open source version of JDOM. To many people XML is a wonderful thing, but, to those of us writing server-side applications that need to handle concurrent usage up in the thousands XML represents a very real threat to scalability. XML is too slow, clunky and chunky. Having read the book I came away disappointed. Servlets are a very powerful and flexible approach to server-side programming with Java. Why can't we have a book that covers application architectures instead?
Rating:
Summary: Very good book, for pros
Review: A very good book, no doubt, but definitely for the professional and not for the novice. Don't expect Jason to spoon feed everything, you have to work a lot to really grasp this book. One annoying thing I noticed is the lack of depth while discussing drivers in JDBC. They talk about creating a DSN, but never mention that it should be a system DSN and not a user DSN. Then they talk about the Oracle driver and never mention that you have to get the file class111.zip in the classpath. Even an otherwise experienced programmer might not know these details. They mention all 4 types of drivers, but discuss only two. You are left wondering what happened to rest ! Nevertheless, a very good book, when compared to others in the market.
Rating: 
Summary: Cookbook approach annoying
Review: People say all sorts of wonderful things about this book, and Iagree with most of them (well written, easy to follow etc). I have one problem: The authors use other people's code to do things they should describe themselves. For example: In their chapter on putting images in to servlets, the authors use some guy's GIF converter as part of their code (I realize that GIFs are a protected format, but the author's themselves say that they could have used JPEGs, which is what I think they should have done). I hate that kind of cookbook junk! If I wanted to go on to the web and download some idiot's class to stir in to a servlet, why would I buy a book on servlets? Of course, this is not the only example... If you're the kind of person who likes the "Perl Cookbook", fine, this book is great; but if you're the kind of person who really wants to know the ins and outs of servlets, try to find some other book.
Rating:
Summary: not so good
Review: We all know the deployment of servlet could be very messy, especially you port application from one web server to a different web server. For complicated application, this book didn't give clue of how to deploy, say, chat server on popular web servers such as apache with Jserv. I found it difficult to put his chat room server to work on apache. Although "Hello world" servlet works, it really doesn't matter to me because this is a small toy application only. Anyone tried to deploy his chat room servlets working on appache and could share with us how to do it?
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: This is a good book to learn about servlet programming. What works for me is reading the book and following through with the examples. For the most part, the examples are good and accurate, however there are several instances where the examples don't work...no problem though, most of the stuff works and you can always refer to the oreily site for corrections, etc. The concepts in general are explained well. Although, I could have used an extra paragraph or two on some of the topics to get a better grasp of things.
Rating:
Summary: Not for dummies! Complete! Up to date?
Review: As many reviewers said, this book is not the "for dummies" type of book. It is complete. Jason not only presents the Servlet technology, but goes the extra mile to show you all the usual portability/efficiency/integration problems of this development model. He also provides a lot of useful code that addresses these problems, and complements the Java source code. My question is: Is it really up to date? For me it doesn't matter much, because it is a great book. It is so famous that many other authors of books about XML, Java, etc, mention it.
Rating:
Summary: Not for dummies! Goes the extra mile! Famous! Up-to-date?
Review: Not for Dummies: Many of the reviewers say that this book is not for Dummies. I agree. Can't program in Java? Get some Java books first. Goes the Extra Mile: I believe Jason when he says: "I put my heart and soul into this book". He goes the extra mile to show you every creative use of servlets. He not only presents the Servlet technology, but anticipates the integration tasks that you're going to face. He provides lots of free source code necessary to program with servlets. Famous: I've been reading books on XML, Java, Web and many of them (from different editors) mention Jason's Servlet book. Up-to-date?: I don't know. Who has got this precise information?
Rating:
Summary: Good Beginner Book
Review: Many people today will migrate towards writing JSP for which this book does not cover. If you are interested in JSP, purchase Professional JSP. I do recommend that everyone read this book as well even though its techniques may be dated.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Introduction
Review: Hunter & Crawford present a solid introductory text to the subject, presenting fairly little fluff. While they avoid discussion of more complex issues, the clarity with which the topics are handled allows the reader to scale the examples to real world problems easily. The only concern I had with this book was the coverage of Java Web Server to the exclusion of all others. Overall, a worthwhile purchase.
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