Professional Java XML Programming with Servlets and JSP

by Tom Myers, Sasha Nakhimovksy, Thomas J. Myers

For experienced programmers, this book focuses on server-side meta programming, and covers standard XML and XSLT. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1861002858
• ISBN13: 9781861002853
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Wrox Press
• Length: 772 Pages
• Weight: 2.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

not for novice

I love this book but obviously it is not for novice.

No nonsense for the seasoned developer

This book is outstanding. It is an extremely relevant and informative guide to some of the most current technologies that I am interested in. The audience for this book is well - targeted. This is not a book for beginning java programmers. This is a book for professionals who have invested a substantial amount of time not only in Java, but in the more core studies of Computer Science. The first several chapters concentrate on building a base of understanding for the rest of the book. The drive to develop n-tier applications is discussed with a detailed focus on the classic three - tier architecture. The shortcomings of common implementations are outlined, and the authors clearly define the source of the problem ... a lack of flexibility in design and implementation. The solution? Could it be XML? Well, XML and various supporting technologies (thus the title of the book). Before delving into the world of the web, the authors take a chapter to fully explain the concepts of languages, grammars and parsing. This chapter could be skipped, but it could help prevent future design disasters that are so commonly associated with a lack of understanding of formal cfg and csg rules.Four chapters are dedicated to the introduction and explanation of XML. These chapters outline the components of XML in a slightly odd order, but contain information essential to the understanding of the later chapters in the book. The authors create a 'mini-language' as an example in one chapter, and I was not very impressed or interested in it, and found it to be of little value, other than to provide exercise using the XML concepts that had already been presented. There is an appendix that summarizes the syntax of JSP, and I thought that the inclusion of the JSDK, JavaMail and JAF api's was a good thing, primarily because they are extension packages, but I didn't really see the need for the JDBC api to be included. The remainder of the book is excellent, the JSP chapter is devoid of XML except to mention that JSP 1.x - compliant processors are required to accept JSP pages in XML syntax. This chapter was of more value to me than several tutorials, and entire books on JSP that I have read. Using the code examples is a snap, assuming you are already familiar with basic java concepts, There is a detailed appendix on HTTP headers, and server response codes, which is helpful to know when just starting to program server-based applications. For those who prefer to see the application of the technology, Chapter 11 and 12 outline a complete application that incorporates JSP, JavaMail and XML (with a few other resources). To wrap it up, Chapter 13 covers XSLT and XPath, these are evolving technologies which are extremely powerful, and they are not even fully developed yet! This chapter uses the XML capabilities of IE5, and you should have it installed on the system you use to test their examples. The examples in this chapter are some of the most advanced and well laid out that i have seen

DON'T READ THIS REVIEW!

Ok, now that I got your attention :) People blasted this book because it is hard to read and the authors are clearly very proud of their work. On both accounts, nothing is really wrong. My take on this book is this: This book has A LOT of good ideas in it. This is how you survive and be competitive in the Internet world: Collect Good Ideas. One caveat, You have to MINE them, don't expect them to be served on a silver platter. Read the book cover to cover, that's why they invented books in the first place. The book is about exploring ways to use XML, I was investigating this very subject and this book takes me through the authors mind into why and how they end up building their framework. To me, that's a very useful mental exercise as I come up with my own ideas for implementing design framework. As a bonus, they also talks about things to consider about Middle tier functionalities such as DB Connection pooling, Meta languages, and XSLT (Watch out for this one!).Final word, this book is worth the price. To the author, thanks for sharing.

Great Book

This is a great book for anyone wanting to great to grips with using these two technologies incorporated together. With no previous XML programming experience, I found it very easy to follow.I would recommend it strongly to anyone with a Java background, wanting to know what all the fuss is about XML.

Update to first review

Great book. With a little detective work I found the sourcecode download at ftp://ftp.wrox.com/professional/2858.zip. 2858 happens to be part of the isbn number. Yeesh! They didn't make that easy to find at all.