Web tier frameworks have really taken off in the past year or so. Developers who used to spend hours and hours writing low-level features have realized the enormous benefits of using well-written frameworks to build the presentation tier so they can get to coding the "good stuff", the business logic at the core of the program. The Struts Framework, originally created by Craig R. McClanahan and donated to the Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta project in 2000, has become one of the most popular presentation frameworks for building web applications with Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology. It encourages application architecture based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design paradigm, colloquially known as the Model 2 approach. As popular as Struts is becoming, the online documentation is inadequate, focusing on the most basic functionality and leaving out information crucial to developers writing today's complex web applications. O'Reilly's Programming Jakarta Struts was written by Chuck Cavaness after his internet company decided to adopt the framework, then spent months really figuring out how to use it to its fullest potential. He calls the books, "the culmination of lessons learned (the hard way) during the building of our application." Readers will benefit from the real-world, "this is how to do it" approach Cavaness takes to developing complex enterprise applications using Struts, and his focus on the 1.1 version of the Framework makes this the most up-to-date book available. Programming Jakarta Struts covers:

• An overview of the concepts involved in writing web applications

• Detailed installation and configuration instructions to get Struts up and running quickly

• A thorough discussion of how Struts implements the Model-View-Controller pattern, and how to interface with that pattern in your own applications

• JSP and Jakarta Tag Libraries for authoring complex web pages

• Logging, Validation, and Exception Handling with Struts

• Using the new Struts template framework, Tiles.

• Writing internationalization and localization code using Struts

• Practical, real-world best practices for web applications

Craig McClanahan, originator of Struts, says of the book, "One thing a lot of open source packages lack is a comprehensive guide to all of the features -- something that goes far enough past "hello, world" to get you into solving real application design problems, and it looks like you've hit just the right level for a lot of people."

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 77 Ratings

Not a tutorial - Don't buy if you want to learn struts - 2006-08-10
Reviewer Rating:
This book should not be viewed as a tutorial. If you know nothing about struts and you want to learn, do not buy this book. You will only confuse yourself.

It makes a great reference once you already know how to use struts, but you cannot learn struts from this book - at least how to code an app.

Simply put, the author does not write this as a tutorial. It does have a running example but it is not a learning book.

Best (but FEW YEARS AGO!) - 2009-03-08
Reviewer Rating:
Outdated, but it was one of the best about Struts. But I gave it 4 stars because it was really my fav.

Good content... but a-whole-lotta-"shoulds" - 2008-03-24
Reviewer Rating:
The book provides a good, basic foundation for working with Jakarta Struts from 1.1 and on. From beginner to advanced developer you'll get a good overview of what Struts is, does and some little details about the inner workings that you will benefit from knowing. Clear, concise examples make it a wonderful intro and reference.

However... the downside to the book is that the author constantly talks about and goes too in-depth into the "shoulds" of development (i.e. separating business layer from presentation, MVC etc. etc. etc.). This is not a topic for the book and results in a lot of things that could have trimmed the book down (and the cost). There's just a whole lot that he didn't need to get into that made reading it a bit of a bore at times (since it's all standard stuff everyone already knows).

Great book... just be ready to skip a bunch of sections in it.

Not very good - 2008-03-21
Reviewer Rating:
i've just joined a new company using struts. i am a java programmer of more than 5 years but completely new to struts, this is the book i was given by my boss but i cant understand it. My main problem is that there are no good examples to follow as if the writter assumes you know struts already. In one word, disjointed.

Thorough Review - 2006-06-21
Reviewer Rating:
The previous book I had on Struts did a poor job of... well, everything. It is called "The Struts Framework" and the main reason I bought it was because it was a manageable 150 pages long. (Am I the only one tired of several hundred page tech books?)
This bably logs in at around 400 pages and does a far better job of explaining what Struts is all about - both fundamentally and specifically. I read the first few introductory chapters and then just checked out the areas I was intrested in. The concepts were presented clearly and the corresponding examples weren't overly complex.
Probably the biggest downside to this book is that it covers Struts 1.1, and today Struts is at 1.2.9, which means 1.3 can't be far away. (Man, writing tech books and then keeping them up-to-date has got to be one tough job!)

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