Struts 2 in Action
On June - 24 - 20105 COMMENTS
- ISBN13: 9781933988078
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The original Struts project revolutionized Java web development and its rapid adoption resulted in the thousands of Struts-based applications deployed worldwide. Keeping pace with new ideas and trends, Apache Struts 2 has emerged as the product of a merger between the Apache Struts and OpenSymphony WebWork projects, united in their goal to develop an easy-to-use yet feature-rich framework. Struts 2 represents a revolution in design and ease of use when compared to c… More >>
This is probably the worst book you can read if you want to get started with Struts. It seems the author targeted this for the people that actually developed Struts. It beats around the bush in useless details without giving a clear structure and examples for people that never saw Struts. Avoid this book if you’re getting started w/ Struts.
Rating: 1 / 5
In my view, this book is an excellent introduction to the Struts 2 framework. The authors approach to the reader is well thought out and the book is actually a “good read”. The conversational tone with which the book was written lends itself tremendously to the reader grasping a firm hold of the technical information. It’s not “dumbed” down at all, it’s just explained very well. Each chapter builds on previous information presented to provide a clear picture of how the framework operates.
According to the authors, there is foundational knowledge that must be understood before Struts 2 can really become a useful tool in a developers hands. (See chapter 4: Adding workflow with interceptors.)
They do an outstanding job of taking the reader though the key concepts of the frameworks architecture. At the end of each chapter, I understood what they were saying and I had a clear idea of the concepts they were attempting to get across. Not many technical books do this very well, however, this one does.
As far as Struts 2 being the “best” framework? I won’t go there. However, Struts 2 looks to be more than capable of handling the requirements when developing both simple and complex web applications. It appears there have been lessons learned from Struts 1.
In summary, it is the opinion of this reader that if you want to learn and *understand* the Struts 2 framework this book will get your there and you will enjoy the journey as well.
Rating: 5 / 5
First, this book is outdated already. It covers Struts 2.0, and if you use 2.1 (which you should) you will have problems. This is particularly acute because 2.1 uses a lot of newer convention-based mapping to actions, and a lot of the techniques described in the book are now deprecated.
However, this biggest problem with the book is that it’s a ponderous read. The author spends countless pages discussing the minutiae of OGNL and type converters … way more than a beginner needs to know. However, more critical topics like the Struts2 JSP tags are barely covered until Chapter 6. Other important topics like session management are barely covered at all. This book needs a lot of editing and reorganization before it will be useful for most beginners.
Nevertheless, there is some useful information here for those with the patience to dig for it. I thought the discussion of interceptors was very solid. However, much of this doesn’t justify the price of the book. I recommend just downloading the Starting Struts 2 docs from the Apache Struts2 website, and working through it. You’ll learn a lot quicker through their “bootstrap” tutorial than you will here.
Rating: 2 / 5
This is a great resource for coming up to speed with Struts 2. Very well written and good explanations of the inner workings of Struts 2.
Rating: 5 / 5
Struts 2 is a good and exciting book. Easy to read and learn about almost everything written in.
Nevertheless, I have some considerations.
1. The examples don’t cover all chapters (excluding 12-15).
2. Some examples, like Hibernate and Spring integration, don’t use the best programming practices (Design Patterns, etc)
3. A lack of a chapter covering AJAX libs.
But, I would say that is one of the most exciting books I’ve ever read.
Thank you!
Rating: 5 / 5