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Struts 2 Design and Programming by Budi Kurniawan

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<pre>Author/s : Budi Kurniawan
Publisher : Brainy Software
Category : Servlets, JSP and Tag Libraries
Review by : Marc Peabody
Rating : 9 horseshoes
</pre>
I'm convinced this is and will remain the authoritative book on Struts 2. I know that more are being written but I don't care. You will not find one better.

I've never worked with Struts 2 in the past yet I was able to get a pretty solid understanding of it in a very short amount of time. Granted, I've had plenty of experience with the original Struts, JSF, and other web technologies, but I think even a beginner could pick this up fairly easily.

I let a friend of mine who had used Struts 2 on a project before skim through my copy of Struts 2 Design and Programming to check for any gaping holes or errant information before writing this review. It passed his inspection. (Thanks, Eric!)

I initially was a little skeptical when I saw that this Struts 2 book includes many other topics like DAOs, Velocity, FreeMarker, Dojo, and JFreeChart. These sections actually were quite pleasant to read and were great introductions to those topics without taking anything away from the main topic.

When you start making your way into chapters 5 and 6, feel free to jump around to other chapters. Come back to these chapters every once in a while to chew off two or three of the tags at a time. This tip will add to your reading enjoyment.

Overall, this is a terrific book and I highly recommend it to anyone working with or curious about Struts 2.


More info at Amazon.com
More info at Amazon.co.uk
[ February 20, 2008: Message edited by: Book Review Team ]
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Interesting... I'm still working my way through it, but aside form the chapter on form tags, I think Ian Roughly's book (the full book, not the mini book) is a stronger book.

Kurniawan's book might be slightly better as a "reference" volume, but its a little too "prosy" for that, and again accepting the form-tag coverage, doesn't feel comprehensive enough to truly be a reference tome.

Roughly's book also suffers from the not-quite comprehensive enough feel. Using a single application as the thread connecting the book, at times it feels like he's reaching to pull in a concept he wants to teach about and as a result the application might not stand too well as an example of good use of Struts 2, but as many good examples of concepts in isolation.

And neither book has really covered the zero-configuration aspects/plugins as well as they deserved to be covered, IMO.... (Of course to give the author's credit, a lot of this is still being hashed out and radically changed from point release to point release.)
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Hi Eric.

I haven't picked up these books, but is the promise for them to be a reference book? Do the books promise to be a reference tome, or is it just your hope when picking up the book?

One of my biggest problems with books today is they try to be reference books, and as a result, they just regurgitate online documentation instead of explaining the most basic concepts. I've found that with many of the Hibernate books out there. They contain page after page of documentation, or reference material, but do very little to explain the fundamentals. The Hibernate 'bible' even uses the standard, free, online caveat emptor application as it's "case study," rather than trying to teach you Hibernate from an original, or more educationally sound, example.

I wonder if the desire for books to be 'all things to all people' isn't part of the reason why so many technical books suck these days?

Just something I'm thinking about as I'm writing another technical book. Do I regurgitate the free, online documentation, for fear that someone will write a bad amazon review saying "I can't believe he put this book out without covering section 2.1.3.43.4312 of the XA Open Transaction Architecture." which is pretty much what someone said about my "What is WebSphere?" book.

Regards,

-Cameron McKenzie
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I don't think either book positioned itself as a reference book. My comments were more reacting to the original reviews calling it "the authoritative book on Struts 2". Neither book is written by a core committer, so in that sense neither is pre-positioned for an "authoritative" mantel.

However Struts 2 Design and Programming feels more like a reference book. It does give a rather O'Reilly like guide to the tag libraries in terms of providing one-liner descriptions for all of the attributes and more detailed for some. It also seems to have a weaker thread connecting the chapters, which also gives it a referencey feel.

I ordered this book because it was originally scheduled to be the first struts2 book released. Not for any particular positioning/advertising. I was actually avoiding Roughley's book since I was very un-impressed with his free book.... But with the release slips, I ended up getting it just because..... and being extremely impressd. I'm also looking forward to Don Brown's book (as that will be one from a core committer), plus I tend to like Manning Press's Java books.

Neither book completely satisfies me, but I'd rate Roughley's book well above Kurniawan's. Both are poorly titled though (of course titles often are not under the author's control....) -- Roughley's book barely touches Web 2.0 (for the better I feel), while there was nothing "Tutorial" about Kurniawan's book in either sense (It wasn't a really a guided tour/step-by-step process that many would expect from a tutorial, nor was it a more academic tome with problem sets type exercises that I could also see having a tutorial name)

And I haven't really got any "Design" insights out of Kurniawan's.. I did get a lot of interesting paradigms out of Roughley's, but as mentioned feel like they don't fit together well and as structured in his text seems to lead to an overly complicated mish-mash (especially when dealing with interceptors)
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Thanks Eric.

Great insights.

-Cameron
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Hi i want to know that is indian edition of Strut2 Design and programming book available in india?
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Hi i also want to know that is indian edition of Strut2 Design and programming book available in india? If yes then where can i get this in Delhi at what price?
I have been waiting for long for this book.
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Yes, I think this is available in India as I heard from my friend that he had purchased it. You have to probably call a couple of book shops near your locality and check!
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Hi
I have called many shops even in whole Nai Sarak market famous for all kind of books in Delhi but could not succeed.I called even their publishing house in Daryagang in Delhi but they told me that they dont know about that .
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Looks strange!
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Hi i am living in bangalore so can any body suggest me where i can get this book?
thanks in advance
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Hi manas
I think indian edition for this has not been published till now .I am also waiting for this book.It is a very nice book.
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May be I was mentioning the international edition.
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I am looking for indian edition...do you have any idea about this book publish in india or not?
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Till now i am wandering that can i get indian edition of this book?or is there any indian edition of this book.?
Thanks in advance
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Hi
I am also waiting for this indian edition book but it has not come in the market till now.Don't know when will come?
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Any update?
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Originally posted by pradeep singh:
Any update?



Have you tried asking the publisher? We don't get any special information about this sort of thing here at the Ranch.
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I am wondering.
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Has anybody got any idea where to purchase

Struts2 Design And Programming

By Budi Kurniawan book in

INDIA,New Delhi.
mail: simpleboy19@sify.com
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dont know .I am also waiting for this Indian print.
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Evem I'm waiting for this book!
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I'm convinced this is and will remain the authoritative book on Struts 2. I know that more are being written but I don't care. You will not find one better.



I tend to agree. I'm working through it BUT I have one problem. On chapter 11 the MySQL script isn't there. I tried to download the sample apps again from http://jtute.com (as recommended in the book), but the MySQLScripts are missing. Any idea why? Is there an errata for this book? Author's email? How else can I Obtain the mySqlScripts?
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