Head First Design Patterns

Servlets

Professional Java Server Programming: with Servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSP), XML, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), JNDI, CORBA, Jini and Javaspaces

Format: Paperback
Author: Sing Li
ReleaseDate: August, 1999
Publisher: Peer Information Inc.
Rating:

Not for serious developers.
But for those who are already in this field for a while and want to build on their knowledge this book would be a big disappointment. I would reccomend this book only to people who are new to Java Programming and want an overall treatise with something on everything possible server side. The other main drawback of this book is its bulkiness.

This book does cover some of the topics like servlets in detail good enough for a serious programmer but most of the other topics introduced are not exhaustive enough for a serious developer.

To sum it up, rather buy books on individual topics and build a solid base than adorn your bookself with fancy Wrox books.

Not For Professionals
Imagine 10+ authors. I bought this book a few months ago and I found out that it covers the basics of J2EE. Each talks about their own thing and then they slap it together and call it a Wrox Published book. My gripes with this book are:
1. Unfocused. Topics jump from rather quickly and do not ease you into one another.
2. Code is filled with example codes that do not work.
3. Did not stay with one topic and cover it enough.
4. Price

Good things about the book:
1. Has a pretty nice red cover so I know Wrox made it.
2. It's pretty big so if a rat manages to get in the house, I can squash it with the book, not that I would do such a thing.
3. Makes people go "WOW" when they say, "you actually read that whole thing??" given the number of pages.

Unfortunately, this is not one book that I've been hitting on for help at all. It's usually the last resort to look up information since I usually find the answers I need elsewhere. The material provided in this book is too spread out and not covered enough in detail to be of much use.

However, for those who just want to get a feel for the J2EE technologies, I say you would enjoy this book. But it would outlive its usefullness after some time.

Great book
It give you the overall idea on Java Server Programming. Over all this is a great book. If you really serious on specific topic, you have to buy another one. It is good for the beginner to grap the general idea on Java Server Programming.