Imagine a world without eBay...unthinkable! How would you get that Farrah Fawcett poster, retired Beanie Baby, or first-edition pet rock? Handling over a gazillion (OK, we exaggerate--it's actually only 1 billion) page views each day, server-side Java makes eBay work. Isn't it time you learned the latest (J2EE 1.4) versions of Servlets & JSPs? This book will get you way up to speed on the technology you'll know it so well, in fact, that you can pass the Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD) 1.4 exam. If that's what you want to do, that is. Maybe you don't care about the exam, but need to use Servlets & JSPs in your next project. You're working on a deadline. You're over the legal limit for caffeine. You can't waste your time with a book that makes sense only AFTER you're an expert (or worse one that puts you to sleep). No problem. Head First Servlets and JSP's brain-friendly approach drives the knowledge straight into your head (without sharp instruments). You'll interact with servlets and JSPs in ways that help you learn quickly and deeply. It may not be The Da Vinci Code, but quickly see why so many reviewers call it "a page turner". Most importantly, this book will help you use what you learn. It won't get you through the exam only to have you forget everything the next day. Learn to write servlets and JSPs, what makes the Container tick (and what ticks it off), how to use the new JSP Expression Language (EL), what you should NOT write in a JSP, how to write deployment descriptors, secure applications, and even use some server-side design patterns. Can't talk about Struts at a cocktail party? That'll change. You won't just pass the exam, you will truly understand this stuff, and you'll be able to put it to work right away. This new exam is tough--much tougher than the previous version of the SCWCD. The authors of Head First Servlets and JSP know: they created it. (Not that it EVER occurred to them that if they made the exam really hard you'd have to buy a study guide to pass it.) The least they could do is give you a stimulating, fun way to pass the thing. If you're one of the thousands who used Head First EJB to pass the SCWCD exam, you know what to expect!

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 146 Ratings

Excellent book on Servlets & JSP - 2010-02-07
Reviewer Rating:
The Head First series is like a seal of quality, its friendly approach and way of explaining concepts just show that. And Head First Servlets & JSP is no different.

The book is recommended for those who want to learn JEE (the web part), but if you have to have some background on Java, if you don't buy Head First Java first!

The book starts showing some concepts on the Internet, how servers work, pages and HTML. ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC! They can make computers look much simpler and easy to learn.
Then, they show some simple web app. and explain it, then you'll see that this small app. got some problems (the HTML and Java code are mixed, making it painfully hard to maintain and understand) so they introduce other concepts like JSP, and they progress, showing that scriptlets in JSP are terrible too, so they present JSTL and so on. Even Enterprise Design Patterns are covered.

I found the book covers pretty well all the non-framework part of JEE, that is just Sun technology, no Struts, JSF, Hibernate, Spring, etc. But that's an excellent intro for Java Enterprise Edition. And of course, probably the best book for the Sun Certified Web Components Developer (SCWCD), with a lot of exercises in the last pages of each chapter. Every topic for the SCWCD is covered.

Definitely recommended!

SCWCD - 2010-02-04
Reviewer Rating:
This book was very helpful for me, I passed the exam in the first time

Only buy this book for exam prep. - 2009-12-22
Reviewer Rating:
The subtitle should be the title of this book. The book is 879 pages; the material could be covered in about 150. In several instances the authors state a topic isn't covered on the exam so it isn't covered in the book. Each chapter contains "Sharpen your pencil" and "Coffee Cram" exam type pages; The exams contain one copy of each page with the questions, and a duplicate page with the answers.

Only the core JSTL is covered. Formatting, SQL, and XML JSTL are mentioned; but only to inform the reader they are not covered on the exam.

No mention of using Servlets and JSP to create a database driven application. As a matter of fact, they don't really mention or give examples of any large applications. It's not on the exam.

The book contains plenty of whitespace and is well written if you enjoy a little levity with your learning. It's a shame the authors selected such a narrow topic.

After you finish the exam, you might as well sell the book. It's a terrible reference (remember each page of mock exam takes up 2 pages: 1 for the exam, 1 for the answers).

The signal to noise ratio of this book is too low to be useful.

A joy to read - 2009-12-08
Reviewer Rating:
The writing style in this book makes it a joy to read. The book doesn't dive into complex Java frameworks and stays on topic pretty much, focusing on JSP. I think even if someone is not taking the Sun certification exam, it does a pretty good job introducing the different technologies in a very logical and evolutionary way by asking questions, giving lots of visual examples etc. If you are looking for a reference or a solution cookbook, this is not the one, but it does bring balance...

Get Murach's Book Instead - 2009-10-06
Reviewer Rating:
Head First Servlets & JSP hardly lends itself as a resource to the working developer. Using JSP and Servlets for the past year, I initially purchased this book to support my primary job task, but was surely disappointed. The scattered and cartoon drawings throughout the book distract the reader from focusing on the core aspects of JSP and Servlets. Moreover, it lends little help for actually getting up and running with JSPs in a working environment. Rather it focuses on how to pass an exam, but even at this endeavor, the book is just too frivolous and distracting. I returned the book immediately and picked up a copy of Murach's JSP and Servlets instead. You will not be disappointed with Murach - he does everything that this book doesn't.

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