The Open Source Zone

In the starting the author builds a simple example from the ground up. But, from chapter four, instead of continuing adding features to the example, start to explain things whitout practical examples. Conclusion: you are disconnected from the real work with struts until the rest of the book, when he builds a complete application in only one chapter.

I read this book way back and it's a winner for beginners! Except the name of the book (dummies?!?!) this book is an excellent start for the struts audience (again, beginners only!). Let me put it this way, if you have 0 knowledge about struts, take this book, read it and *implement* the examples - you'll understand everything, guarantee!

Robinson and Finkelstein did an excellent job explaining the intricacies of the struts framework and implementation. Well done guys!

Simple, elegant, (sometimes funny), bottom line and excellent examples!
4 stars!

Thank you Mike, Ellen. You did an excellent job. This is one of the rare technical books that I enjoy

I was surprised at how clear this book is. I was expecting less from a "for dummies" book. I had to get a struts-based web application up and running in four days flat and I bought both this book and the more highly regarded "Programming Jakarta Struts" by Chuck Cavaness (an O'Reilly book). I used both books, but relied extensively on the example applications in the "for dummies" book. When crunch time came I found myself consistently turning to the "for dummies" book.

Frankly, I thought it was a darn good book.

I like the Dummies books. <p>OK, so I'm not sophisticated, professional, or even very smart. But so many computer books seem to forget the first twenty pages that explain just what the hell you are trying to do. Perhaps the Dummies books take 40 pages to explain what could have been done in 20, but that's not a problem. I can read fast. <p>It has often happened that I first read a Dummies book and then once I'm deep into doing something with that language I need to go get a more complete Bible type book. I haven't gotten far enough into Java yet to know if this is true, but my newest task is moving a web site over to Unix (BSD), Postgre, Apache, and Java Servlets to provide server side dynamic pages; I don't have the time to read a Bible on each one of these. This book, along with some other Dummies books is getting me started a lot faster than I thought possible.