ISBN:0596006519Amazon.com
If you've adopted Java as your organizational language, you're probably using, or planning to use, some sort of multitier design to maximize maintainability while making your data store accessible to as many applications as possible. The Jakarta engine ranks as the interface server of choice in that environment, and the Jakarta Struts Framework 1.1 makes it far easier to implement multitier information systems. Programming Jakarta Struts is the best how-to documentation around--in print or on the Internet--on the subject of using Struts to their greatest potential. Chuck Cavaness's book is comprehensive, detailed, critical of its subject where appropriate, and generally invaluable to anyone implementing the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern in Java with the assistance of Struts.
Thankfully, Cavaness opens with an overview of the MVC pattern with a focus on how you're meant to implement it under Struts. For anyone thinking that implementing MVC sounds like more trouble than it's worth, this clarifies why such design usually pays off in the long run. After that, it's into the particulars, which include code listings (lots of them, delightfully commented) and crystal-clear block diagrams that show the flow of messages among objects. There are also many database schema charts that show how the authors structure data in the storefront and shopping cart application that spans the whole of this volume. --David Wall
Topics covered: The Jakarta Struts Framework 1.1 and how to use it to implement the Model-View-Controller (MVC) software design pattern. All the important features of Struts 1.1 get attention, including exception handling, the validation framework, internationalization, logging, and templating with the Tiles framework./p>
Reviews From AMAZON.COM
Sorely Lacking
I am very dissapointed in this book, as I purchased it thinking it would give real techniques for using struts. Instead it's just like so many other technical books out there where they give top-soil kind of overviews of the technology. It may be for getting basic concepts of struts, but whenever I find myself trying to lookup up real-world solutions there are no answers.
Good as reference
This is the first Struts book ever published and the one I bought when I first learned Struts. Being a Struts developer himself, the author understands the topics very well. For exmaple, the MVC design pattern was explained well, and so were Struts Validation, HTML , Bean, and Logic libraries. Tiles is also covered well. However, there are some parts where he stumbled. For example, he could not be sure whether the Action class is part of the Model in the MVC pattern or part of the Controller. Therefore, I don't think you should get this book if you just first learn Struts (For tutorial, get "Struts in Action" (Manning) or, better still, the lesser known "Struts Design and Programming: A Tutorial")
Overall, this book deserves 4 stars, included in my wish list for next editions are EL and JSTL (for the View part in the MVC) and real-world examples.