Reviews for Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam

1. Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam (Purchased on 11/09/2009)

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 2009

   I have not recieved this item
   it is more than one month and I have not recieved my book yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   I sent 2 emailes for compalining about this delay but there were no answer
   I will never buy any thing from Amazon !!!!!

2. Head First write excellent introductory books

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 2009

   Brilliant.
   
   Written as an encouraging lightweight read rather than a reference manual. Tons of questions for Sun's SCWCD exam.

3. Thanks, Amazon for fast delivery of this great book!

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 2008

   I would like to thank Amazon for less than 1-day delivery. They've really impressed me by delivering the book within 1 day, when I paid only for first-class postage.
   
   Now, about the book - I haven't read much of the book so far, but it looks quite interesting. It does go into a lot of detail about the basics and is quite funny as well at times, which is quite refreshing! I've also seen that the book uses Memory Maps to convey ideas clearly and to help with remembering, the book repeats the same question over and over again and in different forms.
   
   I am already a fan of Sierra and Bates's book for SCJP and passed that exam by merely studying that book for 8 days. I couldn't complete the book, but still attempted the exam and achieved 70%, which I feel was not bad!
   
   Will review again after reading the book and attempting the real exam. Watch this space....

4. Good ... but...

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 2007

   Firstly I am a big fan of Head First books. Head First Design Patterns was a revelation to me.
   I have Head First EJB & impressed with that. I am a SCJP so no stranger to Java.
   
   But...
   
   Head First Servlets & JSP I have found hard going. At times I have found it absolutely mind numbing. Yes, it may give you a basic intro. to the concepts, but then you are quickly immersed in chapter after chapter of configuration details in the deployment descriptor and the vagaries of EL versus JSTL. On and on it goes. Yes you need to know this stuff but what it really lacks me for is small, full, working *real world* examples for each point you are covering, that you can see in your browser. But of course that would make the book twice as big, so editorial contraints had to apply. Check out Head First Java if you want to see what I mean. There are some really cool complete examples across a wide range of areas.
   
   So yes it covers a lot of ground, will prepare you for the exam, but look to buy another book to give you the means to glue all the theory together. There is the real world lurking beyond the exam and for me this book is too theoretical. There are some great gags in it though, had me laughing out loud at times.
   
   So in conclusion its a very good book overall, but not the right one for me. I learn by doing and applying, and there isn't enough of that for me. I had to wait wade through 10 chapters of theory before the gold dust in the last few pattern oriented ones - thats fine if you're only interested in the exam but I'm not. I want to get my sleeves rolled up & hands dirty...
   
   3.5 stars.

5. best book for anyone new to JSP

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, August 12th, 2007

   This is by far the best book on Servlets and JSPs for anyone new to them. This is not a reference book for seasoned veteran of J2EE, nor is it too good if you don't have any background in JAVA, (you don't have to be advanced, but should definitely have some experience... why not look at head first's book on Java or Sam's teach yourself Java in 21 days).
   I would however highly recommend this book to anyone with some java experience who wants to learn and understand Servlets and JSPs.
   This book combines informal language, humour and images to great effect to retain the things you read and keeps your attention. I don't believe I'm alone when I say most text books are interesting, but incredibly boring and not really accessible.
   Head First's methodology is based on the latest research in cognitive science, neurobiology, and educational psychology, then know learning requires more than just text on a page, for example, their is up to an 89% improvement in recall and transfer studies when graphics are used with words and students perform 40% better on post-learning tests if the language is informal. These may be just statistics I've read from the book, but it made me learn these technologies in less than a month and I was able to produce a professional and secure E-democracy solution for my dissertation.
   I can't praise this book enough, I tried to learn Servlets and JSPs from two other books produced by programmer to programmer before I bought this book and got nowhere. If you need to learn Servlets and JSPs buy this book.