| | |  | General | Home » » » » Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | Looking to study up for the new J2EE 1.5 Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD) exam?
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 brand new J2EE 1.5 exam. If that's what you want to do, that is. Maybe you don't care about the exam, but need to use servlets and 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).
Learn how to write servlets and JSPs, what makes a web container tick (and what ticks it off), how to use JSP's Expression Language (EL for short), and how to write deployment descriptors for your web applications. Master the c:out tag, and get a handle on exactly what's changed since the older J2EE 1.4 exam. You don't just pass the new J2EE 1.5 SCWCD exam, you'll understand this stuff and put it to work immediately.
Head First Servlets and JSP doesn't just give you a bunch of facts to memorize; it drives knowledge straight into your brain. You'll interact with servlets and JSPs in ways that help you learn quickly and deeply. And when you're through with the book, you can take a brand-new mock exam, created specifically to simulate the real test-taking experience.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Bryan Basham | | Paperback:
| 914 pages | | Publisher:
| O'Reilly Media | | Publication Date:
| April 01, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0596516681 | | Product Length:
| 9.3 inches | | Product Width:
| 7.99 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.73 inches | | Product Weight:
| 3.58 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.0 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.8 inches | | Package Weight:
| 3.55 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 34 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 34 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Good book but not completeMay 15, 2010
By Diogo Gonzaga
"Diogo Gonzaga"
It is a good book but to get the J2EE 5 Web Component Developer certificate you must use other resources. Nevertheless, I would say that I learned a lot reading this book and it wouldn't be fair to grade it with 4 stars. I recommend this book for people who don't know nothing about web development using Java. However, if you want to be an expert you should read other books for complementing the knowledge.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Great Book to Pick-up Servlets & JSPs QuicklyApr 17, 2008
By Srihari Mailvaganam
The recently released edition of the book is a great improvement - there is less errata and the Q&A is much more tied into the Sun Web Component Exam.
One of the challenges with picking up Servlets & JSPs is the mass of acronyms and figuring out how it all relates to Java. The Head First book is here to help pick-up the technology as fast as possible and in a fun way.
This book has some of the best tutorials to get from zero to a working web application - and have fun learning along the way. Many readers will probably also want to use the book to cram for Sun's web component exam.
I would highly recommend the book but please do your due diligence: Have a look at the content section. Evaluate if the contents cover what you hope to learn. Read through some of the sample pages and make a decision.
8 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 Barely Useful for CertificationOct 24, 2008
By Brian Uri
"!"
I used Kathy Sierra's "Sun Certified Programmer & Developer for Java 2 Study Guide" to pass both of those certification exams with flying colors. Although the overly jokey format of that book was more cringe-worthy than engrossing, the book contained solid information and was somewhat easy to review, reference, and study with.
I already have a solid working knowledge of servlets and JSPs, so I wanted to find a book that was geared only for certification. I was very hesitant about purchasing this SCWCD book after seeing that it followed the useless Head First approach to teaching, but hoped that the actual information in the book would outweigh the shortcomings. I read the entire book, and took every practice exam but still came away thoroughly disappointed.
PROS:
- The authors are also involved in writing the actual exam, so they have solid observations about the specific types of questions you will see, and offer tips on areas requiring memorization, as well as possible trick questions.
CONS:
- The book tries to be both a "learn servlets and JSP" text and a "prepare for certification" text. These objectives are completely at odds with each other, and the book loses focus when trying to fulfill both. The certification thrust will confuse new developers just learning JSPs, and the learning thrust is extra fluff to wade through for the cert-minded (900 pages of fluff at that).
- Even at 900 pages, the book is not a comprehensive certification source. There were several instances where I encountered mock exam questions that had not been discussed in the text. Instead, the answer key referred me to the Sun specifications (free online). For example, the text devotes 2 pages to RequestDispatchers, and then poses 2 mock questions about query strings that aren't even covered. Later, the book provides a list of the commonly used ServletRequest methods along with the note "// MANY more methods". Of course, one of these unlisted methods is the answer to a mock question at the end of the book.
- There is no way to quickly review the contents of each chapter. I don't necessarily need a reference book, but the Head First approach takes you on several paths through related information, but doesn't step back and show you all the information at once. Some sub-chapters have bullet lists, but this is not consistent throughout.
- The humor is only funny in a "look at me, I'm funny!" way. Tech books can use subtle humor effectively (see Russ Olsen's "Design Patterns in Ruby") but the humor here really turned me off.
- The Head First approach adds a lot of fat that could have been trimmed. For example, the book takes you through 13 pages of examples on dynamic tag attributes before informing you that the approach is tedious and incorrect (the last page tells you to use the built-in DynamicAttributes interface instead).
- Typos abound, not all of which are in the published errata. Particularly egregious were the mock questions with completely wrong answers. The online errata showed nothing wrong, but loading the online copy of the book on the Safari O'Reilly site showed the answers magically correct. Another multiple choice question doesn't even have the options listed.
- For me, the Head First approach to teaching (visual learning, conversational style, keeping the reader's attention, and touching the reader's emotions) fails completely. Your mileage may vary, but a clear, concise lesson on these topics would have been much more effective than endless pages of bad cartoons and captioned kung fu movie screen caps.
As a comparison, I also read "Professional SCWCD Certification" by Jepp and Dalton. This book was perfect -- concise, easy to consult and review, and covering everything in a tome just 1/3 the size of the Head First book. Unfortunately, it covers an older edition of the SCWCD and does not cover SimpleTags, EL, or Tag files (the Filters section is smaller too). If they ever release a new edition, I'd recommend it with 5 stars in an instant.
Bottom Line: The fact that the authors of this book can give you an "inside look" at the style of the actual exam is all that keeps this book afloat as a certification text. Unfortunately, there aren't many other options that cover the most recent iteration of the exam. I got an 89% on the exam, but I equate this more to the free materials on JavaRanch and my pre-existing knowledge than this book.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Best book for learning Java EE's web componentsApr 23, 2012
By Arun Rangarajan
I have read all the chapters in this book and find myself referring to the book often. IMO, it is the best book in market to learn servlets, JSP, JSTL, custom tags, filters and some introductory MVC. A lot of effort has gone into this book to make the concepts stick to your brain, so it is not a dry monologue like Core Servlets and Javaserver Pages: Core Technologies, Vol. 1 (2nd Edition).
I understand that the authors wanted to capture the widest audience and wanted you to understand the basics well, which is why they did not use any IDE like eclipse. But an IDE is what people use in "real life", so a chapter at the end on how to develop a small MVC application with eclipse (or another IDE) would have been really useful!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Good for getting up and running quicklyJun 06, 2011
By Tech Guy
I'll be honest. I mocked my colleague for getting this book, being a fan of the Stroustrup style of programming books. A few months later I had to get up and running with JSP/Servlets and this book was a boon. This is not a bible for JSP/Servlet. What its really good for is if you want to get up and running really fast. I highly recommend this book for good programmers who have Java experience but have not done JSP/Servlets etc. Its got a funky way of presenting information but after a while you learn to digest content really fast because of the style of presentation. Crucial concepts and rules of thumb are highlighted very well.
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