Preface


I started using Struts in late 2000. I was immediately drawn to its power and ease of use. In early 2001, I landed in a multi-year J2EE project, a large project by any measures. Struts 1.0 was chosen as the framework for the web tier in that project. Recently that project upgraded to Struts 1.1. I did the upgrade over a day. It cannot get any easier!

This book makes no assumptions about your Struts knowledge. It starts with the basics of Struts, teaches you what is important in Struts from a usage perspective and covers a lot of practical issues all in a short 200-page book. No unnecessary explanations . Concise, Clear and straight to the topic.

I am a consultant, not an author by profession. Hence my writing also tends to reflect my mindset that got shaped by the various assignments I have undertaken in the past. Large projects and their inbuilt complexities excite me. In large projects, decoupling layers is a big thing. Also minor decisions during architecting and designing (probably without the complete knowledge of the framework used) can impact the project in a big way down the line. Clearly understanding the strengths and shortcomings of a framework and minor customizations to the framework go a long way in making the applications cleaner. In that perspective, I have attempted to give a practical face to this book based on my experience. Chapters 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 will be extremely valuable to all those wishing to use Struts effectively in J2EE projects.

Chapter 9 is based on my article originally published in IBM developerWorks in May 2002 on Best practices in EJB Exception handling (http://www.106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-ejbexcept.html). This chapter borrows some of the core concepts from that article and extends and improvises them to specifically suit the needs of a Struts web application.

I have enjoyed a lot writing this book. Even though I knew Struts well, there were some crevices that I had not explored and have made me that much better. If you are a beginner, this book is your fastest track to master Struts. There are a lot of best practices and strategies related to Struts that makes this book valuable to even experienced developers and architects .

Acknowledgements

My name on the cover means nothing. A good book is the end result of the efforts of many. Many people have helped in countless ways to make this book a reality. I owe countless thanks to my parents and my wife for patiently putting up with me when I was working evenings and weekends on the book and also editing the book. Special thanks also go to Sandeep Nayak for being a beta reader and pointing out the problems in the initial two chapters. I am indebted to Fulco Houkes from Neuch ƒ tel, Switzerland who readily agreed to review my book and try out the source code to ensure its perfectness. Likewise I am indebted to booksjustbooks.com, for making their book on Publishing basics available freely online without which this book wouldn ‚ t have been a reality. Thanks to RJ Commucations for printing this book. Many thanks to Matt Pramschufer from Budget Media Design for the cover design. Finally thanks to God through whom all things are made possible.

Srikanth Shenoy
January 2004




Struts Survival Guide. Basics to Best Practices
Struts Survival Guide: Basics to Best Practices (J2ee Survival Series)
ISBN: 0974848808
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 96

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