JSP and Servlets need help learning

Hi, i have recently tried to delv into the world of java ee, jsp and serverlets i have:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Java-Development-NetBeans-David-Heffelfinger/dp/1849512701/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356116909&sr=1-1
and i am getting:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Servlets-JSP-Certified/dp/0596516681/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356116917&sr=1-1
i cant seem to get a good grip on the first one because its not very beginner friendly so does anyone have advise on how i could learn more easily, effectively and quickly,
i am fairly competent in core java and some other object oriented languages, but this stuff seems really really difficult.
Thanks in advanced.

oh and i am sorry if this is the wrong place to post i'm sorta new

The Head First book should help a lot. Web development is tough. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

after reading a few pages of the 1st book i mentioned im really finding this hard but i am hoping the head first book will clear things up a bit

I have no experience with the first book. But just the fact that it's about an IDE makes it suspect to me. There are a lot of poor books out there.

Also, bear in mind that JEE is a humongous, bloated, over-engineered, and overly complex ecosystem.

Ignore everything other than JSP and servlets. If you try to consume then entire thing, it'd be like trying to eat every buffet in Vegas at one sitting. No one, but no one, uses everything in JEE.

ya see i thought i was going to have to learn it all

Joe

As Bear has already indicated, get your head around application server containers and servlets and the rest will follow.

ok but does what Application server i use effect how i should code?? and whats the difference between a application server and a application server container

Joe Daly wrote:ok but does what Application server i use effect how i should code?

No. In fact, doing so is a poor practice (unless you have a really really really good reason to do otherwise).

and whats the difference between a application server and a application server container

There's no such thing a an "application server container".

The term "application server" means different things to different people.

Generally though, an "app server" is one that has some sort of application engine that allows dynamic content to be generated and for code to be executed on the server. In the case of Java web apps, that's any server with a "servlet container".

A servlet container is the component of a web server that runs servlets.

There are 2 main application server containers:

http://www.theserverside.com/feature/Understanding-How-the-Application-Servers-Web-Container-Works

Web and EJB.

Web is the main one which you should get to grips with.

The term is "servlet container" and EJB is not a servlet container. It's its own thing.

Have to disagree with you there Bear. A web container runs servlets and JSPs amongst others. A EJB container runs, you guessed it, EJBs.

Yes, an EJB container is not a servlet container. That's exactly what I said.

yes, an EJB container is not a servlet container

I never said it was. I referred to 2 containers - Web and EJB.

oh ok cool