| | |  | Osborne-McGraw-Hill | Home » » » » Sun Certified Web Component Developer Study Guide (Exams 310-081 & 310-082) (Oracle Press) | | | | | | | Description: | | An integrated study system based on proven instructional methodology, this book and CD package shows you not only what--but how--to study for the SCWCD exam. The book offers complete coverage of all official exam objectives, 190+ practice exam questions, step-by-step exercises, on-the-job elements, and chapter self-tests. The CD-ROM contains MasterExam software with a complete 69-question exam, a searchable electronic book, 45+ complete web applications with source, and access to a downloadable bonus exam (with free online registration). | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| David Bridgewater | | Paperback:
| 864 pages | | Publisher:
| McGraw-Hill Osborne Media | | Publication Date:
| September 28, 2005 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0072258810 | | Product Width:
| 186.0 centimeters | | Product Height:
| 228.5 centimeters | | Product Weight:
| 3.16 pounds | | Package Length:
| 8.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 7.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.89 inches | | Package Weight:
| 3.17 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 9 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 9 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 29 found the following review helpful:
 Reasonably goodFeb 23, 2006
By kalyson
I got this book partially because I prefer more of a textbook format than the Head First books. This book's format was more straightforward, so I got it along with the Head First Servlets and JSP. However, I have found a lot of errors, inconsistencies and confusing explanations in this book. Some of the errors are minor, but others really cause fundamental confusion. I'm searching for an errata for the book now. (There may not be one -- I'm not finding it yet.)
Although the Head First books have a comic, cartoonish quality that I don't generally care for, I must say that their editing is better, their explanations are always understandable, and I find myself going to that book to clear up my confusion with this one.
That being said, there is a lot of very good information in this book and some of the explanations and examples are pretty good. You might consider getting both books because they both cover the material in different ways.
I was tempted to give the book four stars, but I've just hit another few errors that are really irritating. (The author is trying to explain the difference between the forward() and include() functions for handling servlet requests. But his code examples mistakenly are showing forward() where apparently he meant to type include(). These examples do not match the explanation at all. See pages 183 and 184.)
Another egregious error: In the Head First Servlets & JSP book, they make a point of saying "You need to recognize WRONG method names like: getPrintWriter(), getResponseStream(), [...]" etc. And there's a big X in a circle on top of these names. Look at the SCWCD book by D. Bridgewater on page 179. Guess what method he uses inside the code example -- getPrintWriter() !!! (Gee, and I was wondering why my code would not compile.) In that SAME code sample, you can see him getting a PrintWriter object and calling the "write" method on it. I was perplexed by this because I saw them using the "println" method in the same situation in the Head First book. Well, apparently there is a difference, even though the code does work. Sierra and Bates in Head First make a point of saying you should use "println" with a PrintWriter and a "write" with a ServletOutputStream. They explain why, of course. I don't know about you, but these sorts of errors are confusing. I'm not even mentioning the multitudes of small typos throughout the book, like: java.servlet.forward.path_info. (servlet is in the javax package, not java.)
In any case, the book might be worth getting, and if you are able to find an errata it would make the book much more usable. If you do not find an errata that covers all of these errors (I've only mentioned a few), then be sure to get some other resource to check this one against so you can understand parts that are erroneous or confusing.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 A lot of errorsMay 10, 2006
By L. C.
I would not recommend this book even though it covers all of exam objectives and has a lot of examples and exercises. The reason is that there are a lot of errors that make this book hard to read. It is very irritating, annoying and time consuming.
Here are just some of errors I found in the book.
1. Answer to question 13 on page 88: "...HttpServletRequest.getHeaders() returns all request header names..." It is not correct because the method that returns all request header names is getHeaderNames(). There is no getHeaders() method (with no arguments) in HttpServletRequest class.
2. Page 82 question 19. Author mistakenly took the code from question 8 so the question 19 and answer to it on page 90 are completely irrelevant.
3. On page 559 author says that the type for 'items' attribute is java.lang.Array. There is no such class in Java!
4. Page 637 answer to question 8: "...J to 14 (c:forEach, again)". If you look at question's code on page 625 you can see that correct answer should be: J maps to 'body'.
Number of errors, big and small, is very high in this book. This is the case of unprofessional work both on the part of author & editor.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Needs better technical editing, or at least an online errata guideFeb 04, 2007
By Scott Moore
"scottymo"
After I finished the first chapter self-test, and saw that there were two obvious errors in the answer key (questions 7 and 19), I considered buying another book. I searched for an errata listing for the book online, with no success. I emailed the author and techical editor. To his credit, David Bridgewater replied promptly, but was not much help: he suggested that the publisher probably has it on their website (as of when I emailed him, they did not); and he also sent me corrections to two places in the book, but there are a lot more just two errors in the book.
The technical editor did not reply to my email. This comes as no surprise; perhaps she is embarrased at the poor job she did editing this book. She obviously did not give thorough consideration to the self-tests.
I decided that I did not want to spend the time or money to get a different exam guide, and that 99% of the book was most likely accurate, and the errata are probably easy to spot (even if they are really annoying), so I trudged on.
I regret that decision. I am now at the end of chapter 4, and have spotted a total of five major errors in the self-tests, and at least a dozen minor errors in the self-tests and the text of the chapters. Also annoying is the ambiguous wording in some of the self-test questions; some of the phrases used are open to interpretation, and should be worded to be less ambiguous.
Without knowing how good or bad other SCWCD exam guides are, I'd feel pretty confident in recommending that you should probably go with a different study guide that this one.
7 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 save your moneyJul 11, 2006
By George F. Morris
The author probably has great insight into the subject matter;unfortunately, he does not know how to convey his knoeledge to the reader. The practice test questions are ambiguous and full of errors. There was probably minimal editing of questions and answers; as a result, a reader has to correct the errors and then try to fully comprehend the explanations to the practice questions. It is an inefficient way to study and learn. Head First,despite its errata (it has corrections at its website), is a superior product. This textbook is not worth the headaches.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Messy , but practicalFeb 02, 2008
By Riccardo Audano
This book material is actually decent, accurate and complete, but exposed in a very disorganized and confusing way, with a writing style that will put you to sleep in seconds. It also contains some typos, a defect particularly unforgivable in a certification book. For style , organization and overall coolness 'Head First SCWCD' is way ahead of this book, but it does have a drawback: no code examples. Certification book or not, lack of code examples is a mortal sin (of laziness) by the authors. This book does have a few code example (structured as exercises) for the most important sections in each chapter, and a final 'lab' (simple exercise) at the end of each chapter. I like that, but I also have to say that the code examples are sometimes unnecessarily convoluted, and badly structured. Each small example is a single web application. Trust me, you will soon get tired of having to decompress and mess with every single damn war of these examples. How about a single web application organized as an Eclipse project with a ant build file to build it and deploy it instead? So, if you already have enough practice in coding java webapps, and just want to brush up the dusty corners and get used to the nasty, useless, tricky questions that plague certification exams, 'Head First SCWCD' should be your favorite choice.
But if you like to do a little practice and see the concept you're studying in action, this book would be more appropriate. This book can also be used to actually learn Servlet & JSP, not just to pass the exam.
Finally, a big plus is having the entire pdf version of the book on the accompanying CD, which also contains a free exam simulator. (All things you don't get with the O'Reilly book).
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