The uniqueness among other JSF books

[Ko Ko Naing]

Hi Mr.Geary and Mr.Horstmann,
There are many JSF books in the market nowadays. For example, JavaServer Faces by Hans Bergsten from O'Reilly, JavaServer Faces in Action
by Kito D. Mann from Manning and Mastering JavaServer Faces by Bill Dudney from John Wiley & Sons.

Could you explain a bit about the approach that you used in the book to discuss JSF topics? Or just the description about the order of the chapters and their relationship would be alright... Thanks a lot!!!

[Nicholas Cheung]

Cay, in addition, what is the distinction between your book and other books?

Nick

[David Geary]

In Core JSF, we wanted to walk you up the JSF learning curve as quickly as possible with succinct prose and lots of code examples. Those are the kinds of books we like to read, so that's what we write.

Chapter 4, which discusses the standard JSF tags and chapter 12 How Do I... are good examples of that. I wrote the former and Cay the latter and both chapters have very high information density. In chapter 4, I decided to use tables to show multiple examples of how to use each component, because I can really show you nearly everything you need to use outputText or commandButton in 1/3 of a page. That's how I learn best--for example, when I use Unix man pages, I almost always first scroll down to the Examples section to see how to use a command.

We also wanted to cover a broad spectrum of readers from novices to readers that had used JSF before. So the first half of the book is a gentle introduction to JSF whereas the second half of the book covers more advanced topics.

As far as the other JSF books, I've only read (some of) Hans's book, which is very nicely done. Hans concentrates a little more on advanced aspects than we do. I haven't seen Kito's book, but I know Kito, so I assume the book is very good. From what I've heard, Kito's book has some cool custom components.
[ December 14, 2004: Message edited by: David Geary ]

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by David Geary:
We also wanted to cover a broad spectrum of readers from novices to readers that had used JSF before. So the first half of the book is a gentle introduction to JSF whereas the second half of the book covers more advanced topics.

So, Mr.Geary, do you rate your book level of the book as Beginners to Intermediate Level? Or to a bit advance level? :roll:

Thanks a lot for your warm reply...

[David Geary]

I'd say Core JSF is targeted at beginner-intermediate. We do cover some advanced topics, but that's probably more Hans's realm. I'd say the O'Reilly book is more intermediate-advanced.

[Nicholas Cheung]

Which IDE does the book using?

In addition, could you outline some advanced topics?

Nick

[David Geary]

The book doesn't assume anything more than a text editor and a browser as far as an IDE. In Chapter 12, we show you how to use Eclipse with JSF.

Some advanced topics are using Tiles with JSF, using Struts client-side validation in a JSF application and developing your own components and renderers.

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by David Geary:
The book doesn't assume anything more than a text editor and a browser as far as an IDE. In Chapter 12, we show you how to use Eclipse with JSF.

I have just downloaded chapter-12 from the Amazon site and the chapter is really great. The whole chapter is divided into four main sections: Web UI Design, Validation, Programming and Debugging & Logging... Cay did really great work in that chapter...

BTW, is there any other IDEs that have built-in JSF support? I heard that JBuilder 2005 is the first IDE to support JSF... Is that right? Which IDE (do u feel) would give the best support for JSF developers? Thanks a lot for your replies...

[Pradeep bhatt]

Originally posted by Ko Ko Naing:


I have just downloaded chapter-12 from the Amazon site and the chapter is really great. The whole chapter is divided into four main sections: Web UI Design, Validation, Programming and Debugging & Logging... Cay did really great work in that chapter...

BTW, is there any other IDEs that have built-in JSF support? I heard that JBuilder 2005 is the first IDE to support JSF... Is that right? Which IDE (do u feel) would give the best support for JSF developers? Thanks a lot for your replies...

Could you please post the link here.

[Varun Khanna]

link

search for "Chapter 12" in this page

and for chapter 1,2,3,4,6,9 ... see this link : http://www.horstmann.com/corejsf/
[ December 14, 2004: Message edited by: K Varun ]

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Pradeep Bhat:
Could you please post the link here.

Pradeep,
Here is the direct
link to the chapter... Just click it and the resulting page will contain chapter-12 of the book...

Hope it helps...

[Nicholas Cheung]

BTW, is there any other IDEs that have built-in JSF support?

There seems no IDE having built-in JSF support. IBM has added a JSF plugin to WSAD 5.1.2 in order to support JSF.

Nick