Budi Kurniawan

Hi Vic,
Servlet 3.0 offers some new features, including:
- new annotation types for annotating Servlet classes. These annotation types make the deployment descriptor optional. The deployment descriptor is still needed for more advanced configuration settings.
- asynchronous oprations
- dynamic registration and initializers
- file upload. No need for a separate library

If you already program with Servlet 2.5, you should be able to pick up these new features easily.

Thanks Paul for the pitch. :-)

Good morning Raghavan,

1. To what extent does the book cover on the Web Server, HTTP Semantics?
The book introduces the HTTP protocol and discusses how a web application communicates with a web server. I think this should give a good understanding of the underlying architecture to beginners.

2. Does it cover the fundamentals of Server side programming with the web server and its needs?
Absolutely, I think all good servlet/JSP books do cover these topics.

3. Though it is more of advanced/latest version of Servlet (3.0) and JSP (2.2), to what extent it will serve as a complete reference to Servlet and JSP? To put it in other way, will it be a single point of source for a beginner to pick up and excel?
The book covers all servlet/JSP features, including the new features in Servlet 3.0 and JSP 2.2. So yes, this book is also for you if you have no experience with servlets.

4. Does this book touch base on the portability of code across different containers? I guess you might have taken Tomcat as an example as most people do.
Yes, I used Tomcat to test the examples. However, servlet/JSP applications will run on any compliant Java EE or servlet/JSP container. So I don't think portability is an issue.

5. Does it also give a decent introduction of XML and XML Schema for the DD (web.xml) file if at all a developer is still going with the web.xml written by him?
The deployment descriptor (web.xml) and web fragments are discussed extensively. However, the reader should already know basic XML.

Hope these answered your questions.

Hi Tibor,
One of the benefits of the Servlet/JSP technologies is scalability, especially compared to older technologies that spawned a new process for every HTTP request. A servlet instance stays in memory after the first invocation, waiting to serve other requests. Using Servlet/JSP also means you get all the benefits Java has to offer (cross-platform, extensive libraries, security, etc).

Dependency injection in general. There's also a simple DI framework implementation.

Hi Archana,

My book is designed as a tutorial and comes with lots of real-life examples. This should be an easy read for someone with servlet/JSP background like you.

Hi Sudipto,
I normally write at least two examples for each subtopic, a simple and easy one to explain the concept, and one that is slightly complex for it to be useful.
So, to answer your question, there are a lot of examples accompanying the book and they are downloadable from:

http://books.brainysoftware.com/download

Thanks

Hi Ram,

Yes.

Hi Karl,
Bear is right. Most if not all other books that exclusively covers servlets and JSP are obsolete since Servlet 3.0 emerged. There are books that bundle Servlet 3.0 with other Java EE technologies, but coverage is much less than it should be.

Hi Ram,

The book does not explain session replication in a distributed environment other than how to configure an application to be deployed in one. This is because the topic is not in the Servlet specification and every servlet/JSP container has its own mechanism with regard to distributed deployment and configuration varies. However, the book recommends that all HttpSession attributes implement java.io.Serializable just in case the instances need to be serialized to a different node in a cluster or to secondary storage.

Hi Venkat,
There's a chapter on application design, which covers the MVC pattern, dependency injection, connection pooling, etc.

You're right, Bear.
I should've just said 'grow' instead of 'grow in complexity'

Hi Abdelrahman,
The book does not cover JSR 286 or 168, unfortunately.

Hi Armando,

For a very small application, then Servlet/JSP will do. However, if you think the app will grow in complexity in the future, why not start with JSF/Struts 2?

Thank you. Everyone feel free to post any question or comment you may have.