About the Book

[Gregg Bolinger]

Part I
a. How do the Authors feel about STRUTS?
b. Why are there still JSP/Servlet books being published when the community is all about Frameworks?
Part II
a. I recently acquired a java book and the author had stated that there were complete code examples all through the book plus at the end of the book you had a working example. This turned out to be false. There were code fragments throughout the book and even reference to some classes never shown.
Does your book do the same thing or are the examples easier to follow and complete?
Welcome to the Ranch BTW !! Don't forget to go hang out in the Authors Realm.

[Joel Murach]

First, thanks for hearty the welcome to The Ranch. Quite a place you've got here. What a view!
Anyhow, to answer your questions...
Part I
a. I'm more of a technical writer than a developer, so I haven't gotten around to using Struts yet. I've read about it, so I understand the general idea, and it seems like it makes a lot of sense for anyone who wants to develop well-structured, maintainable applications in a timely manner. The code that I've seen seems a bit abstract and unwieldy, but I don't have the hands-on experience to make any judgements yet. I'd be curious to hear from anyone with some experience using Struts. Anyone? So far, I've heard mostly good things about it.
b. There is definitely a lot of interest in Struts these days. But isn't it necessary to understand servlets and JSP development before you can use these frameworks? And aren't there still some developers who prefer more straightforward servlet and JSP development over a framework that has an additional learning curve and an additional layer of abstraction?
Part II
a. I know what you mean. I read a lot of technical books, and it's amazing to me how many books inlcude code examples that omit code that's essential to understanding the example, or that include code examples that just don't work. With http://www.murach.com/books/jsps/index.htm, I think you'll see that our code examples are more complete than most competing books. Plus, all of the code examples are included on the CD that comes with this book, so you can open any of them in a text editor to see the complete code for the applications, and you can use them as a starting point for your own applications. Not only that, but we've tested these applications thoroughly, so we guarantee that they work. It may not seem like much, but I can't tell you how many books I've used where the published code actually did not work.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Thanks for your comments Joel.
I'm more of a technical writer than a developer
I wonder if this is why your book could be better than some others? Maybe as a technicle writer you are more aware of things that NEED to be specified and said in a book where a developer writing a book tends to ASSUME too much. Maybe an interesting thread to start in one of the Author Forums.
Thanks for the link. I bookmarked it so I can use it when the time comes. Hopefully I will just win your book.
but I can't tell you how many books I've used where the published code actually did not work.
Amen brother!!