Customer Reviews
Thanks, Amazon for fast delivery of this great book! - By: Mr. K. Gandhi, 12 Dec 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 & 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 & to help with remembering, the book repeats the same question over & over again &in different forms.
I am already a fan of Sierra & Bates's book for SCJP & passed that exam by merely studying that book for 8 days. I couldn't complete the book, but still attempted the exam & achieved 70%, which I feel was not bad!
Will review again after reading the book & attempting the real exam. Watch this space....
Good ... but... - By: David Victor, 25 Sep 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 immersedin chapter after chapter of configuration detailsin the deployment descriptor & the vagaries of EL versus JSTL. On & 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 seein 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 & for me this book is too theoretical. There are some great gagsin it though, had me laughing out loud at times.
Soin conclusion its a very good book overall, but not the right one for me. I learn by doing & applying, & there isn't enough of that for me. I had to wait wade through 10 chapters of theory before the gold dustin the last few pattern oriented ones - thats fine if you're only interestedin the exam but I'm not. I want to get my sleeves rolled up & hands dirty...
3.5 stars.
best book for anyone new to JSP - By: Mr. I. A. Hackney, 17 Aug 2007 
This is by far the best book on Servlets & 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 backgroundin 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 Javain 21 days).
I would however highly recommend this book to anyone with some java experience who wants to learn & understand Servlets & JSPs.
This book combines informal language, humour & images to great effect to retain the things you read & keeps your attention. I don't believe I'm alone when I say most text books are interesting, but incredibly boring & not really accessible.
Head First's methodology is based on the latest researchin cognitive science, neurobiology, & educational psychology, then know learning requires more than just text on a page, for example, their is up to an 89% improvementin recall & transfer studies when graphics are used with words & 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 technologiesin less than a month & I was able to produce a professional & secure E-democracy solution for my dissertation.
I can't praise this book enough, I tried to learn Servlets & JSPs from two other books produced by programmer to programmer before I bought this book & got nowhere. If you need to learn Servlets & JSPs buy this book.
Comprehensively covers all the basics - By: C. A. Rodger, 18 Jul 2007 
Very good book if you are new to the world of JSPs & servlets. Use of diagrams makes it a lot more fun to read than some other dry books on the subject. Highly recommended!
Where is the 4.5 star option? - By: S. Umamaheswarampillai, 26 Apr 2006 Headfirst books are like marmite - people either love it or hate it. I have met people who say the Headfirst books are the best they have seen on the planet & THE way to prepare for java certification. And then there are others who say they are crap because they waste too much space & time with stupid jokes. I have done both programmer & developer certification but so far I have stayed away from Headfirst. Nothing personal. They just didn't seem right for me. And I started preparing for the Web component exam with Marty Hall's book. (An excellent book indeed!) But Although Marty's book is great (Andin some ways better than this one) He is focused on giving a very practical guide to the world of servlets & JSPs. But the authors of this one really want to help you get through the exam. So if you are after the exam this one is indeed the better book. I started reading this one after finishing a little more than half of Marty's book & now I wish I had started with this instead. (By the way I did buy the Manning (Hanumant Deshmukh) book before this one while I was holidayingin India but after coming back I read all those angry reviews for the second edition & not to touch it!)
The plus points are
The explanations are very clear & very logical
100% focused on the exam
Quite a lot of questions & answers
Easy to read
The only negative point is you waste a lot of time because of all the funny 'head first' stuff. I agree it is a matter of taste. I was a fan of the 'C for dummies' once upon a time. But now reading a techie book is not my idea of fun (unless it is written by Dan Gookin maybe). So I am not so amused when they give advice about Herbal Decaff tea & stuff. Some of their jokes make me laugh but I feel I could finish this book a lot quicker if they take away all this stuff. They could have added more review questions instead of those I think.
But over all this is the best I could find for the exam.
