The directory structure described in 1st chapter doesn't fit Tomcat's directory structure. The text description is correct, but the screen shot is wrong. Also in 1st chapter, the JAR files that should be included in PATH variable also have the wrong name. This is very low-level mistakes.

The 2nd chapter reviews HTML. Well, it is rather confusing than helpful. Then in Chapter 4 the author talks about database and tries to explain Normalization. I'd rather the author skips on this topic because he/she seems just lack of ability to explain things in the clear way.

I bought this book to learn JSP, not to compose an errata for the author. I believe most readers don't like to do that either. If you would like avoid unnecessary headache, look else where.

First of all:
I did like this book. It gave me an easyly accessible introduction to all this business around using Tomcat. The author took quite some trouble to explain every related technology (HTML, CSS, SQL, OO, Java ...) in some detail. Sometimes you want to read through it to get reminded, sometimes you want to skim over it and sometimes even to skip it. But it is good that it is there. I do not know if you can actually grasp those related technologies, if you never saw them before. For me the rehash was helpful on all the cases I needed them.

The core topics of the book: JSP itself with its expression language und standard tag libraries were very well explained and easy to grasp also for a first timer like me. I now do have a good feeling for its core topics and their whereabouts. I only got lost (a little) in the last chapter about Struts. There is seemingly so much overlap to other technologies (EL, JSTL, home grown Beans) that I did not succeed to get a clear picture of when to use what.

I did not read this book through because not even the 1st sample code works (due to configuration). Sent questions to two of the aythors the email addresses given in the book are not even valid !!! I went to sun website and the anwser was straight forward. If a book for novice can not explain better than Sun's official documents, why bother write the book?

Waste of time and Money! Keep away from these authors who failed to display professionalism!

I had bought this book to improve my knowledge of JSP - which is rather limited. I had expected, from the text on the back cover, this to be a comprehensive book on how to code JSPs (with lots of examples - which I like). In reality I was rather disappointed.
The first Chapter went well, how to install Tomcat, and the second wasn't too bad (a review of HTML) but by the third chapter I started to notice a lack of clarity. It wasn't always clear which text I should be typing in and which were simply given as an aside - which for a step-by-step guide is frustrating. The fourth chapter was far worse. This started of by saying that we would be using mySQL, but failed to give any indication of where to get the software from, how to install it or how to start the server (you need to start the server to follow the examples). And then a number of the example instructions, that were given in this chapter, did not work without modification. I was able to work round these problems and make progress. But as this wasn't a core chapter (I read this book to learn how to use JSPs not mySQL) I had expected to go through it quickly.
Overall the content was very useful and I learnt a lot, but the book would benefit from being edited (again?) and a second edition.

"Beginning JSP 2?" Yeah, right. Try: "Beginning JSP 2, HTML, JDBC, Java, JSTL, XML, XSLT, XML DTDs, XML Schemas, Servlets, Filters, with some MVC (Model 2) and Struts thrown in for Good Measure." While my recommended title may be a bit too long to be practical as a book title, it would better capture the materials covered from an introductory level, in "Beginning JSP 2."

In about 360 pages, through 10 chapters, this book covers the technologies listed above, describing what they are, what they do, why folks are using them, how to use them, and how they relate and work with other technologies. Following these action packed chapters, the appendixes serve as great quick references on JSP syntax, implicit JSP objects, and various XML configuration files.

To nitpick a bit: The book could benefit from some more aggressive editing, in parts, where sentence and paragraph wording is occasionally a little clumsy, and a few good-to-understand details were left out.

The description on the back cover of the book says, "All you need... is a basic understanding of HTML and Java." I suggest this be corrected as follows: "All you need to know in order to follow and understand the lessons in 'Beginning JSP 2' is enough HTML to create a 'Hello World!' web page, and enough Java to create a 'Hello World!' application." On second thought, even if you can't do those things, yet, after reading this book, you'll be able to do a whole lot more.