Murach’s Java Servlets and JSP, 3rd Edition by Joel Murach & Michael Urban

I give this book 9 out of 10 horseshoes.

"Murach's Java Servlets and JSPs" third edition looks/reads like a Murach book. This is good. It's always nice when a book delivers what you are expecting. If you haven't read a Murach book before, it is a book meant for beginners. The left page is text and the right is code/diagrams/references. Each chapter ends with very detailed exercises.

The book begins with basics but doesn't limit itself to raw servlets and JSP. Chapter 1 explains how Spring/JSF fit into the picture. The book even covers JSF (but not Spring.) I wasn't expecting either to even be mentioned, so this is a nice bonus.

The book tries to cover real world concepts. There was a good bit about security including XSS and SQL injection. I would have liked other security techniques to be alluded to like CSRF. That might be too much to expect in a beginner book though. I haven't seen a beginner book cover XSS before.

The book is up to date including Java 8, HTML 5, CSS - even MVC. There were good disclaimers of when you should/shouldn't do something. Like not using scriptlets.

There was only one piece of advice I disagreed with - using the Tomcat lib directory. I asked the author about that during the CodeRanch promotion. He explained he doesn't endorse that practice and will word it more clearly in the next edition. I'm satisfied with that answer. I also wish he covered tag files. Tag files rock. Minor things that I miss.

Noticing a theme? I'm happy with the book. It covers more than I expected so it whet my appetite for more. It highly recommend this book as your first Java web development book.

Review migrated from old book review post

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Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher for reviewing it on behalf of CodeRanch.