Tapestry in Action

by Howard Lewis Ship

Manning Publications (March 2004)

This book is written by the creator of Jakarta Tapestry, which says a lot. It is not a basic tutorial, but is a must for those who already have some understanding and practical experience of Tapestry. The book is about Tapestry 3 but is still useful for any Tapestry developer because it draws the general picture of the framework, which is not so easy to get from the other sources.

What I like the most about this book:

It shows the inspiration which led to creation of Tapestry, and this inspiration is infectious. It contains a significant amount of example applications with detailed explanations of their workings, and one close-to-real-life application described and explained quite thoroughly.

What I don't like about this book:

The style of the author isn't always easy. Sometimes a good simple non-formal diagram would be more useful than UML sequence diagrams.

Enjoying Web Development With Tapestry

by Ka Iok "Kent" Tong

Highly recommended!

This book can also be purchased from Lulu.com website.

This is a great tutorial which will really teach you how to deal with Tapestry - step-by-step, but very quickly at the same time. It is full of examples and valuable advices, it begins with the installation of everything required for development and then goes on to quite advanced topics.

When I was building my first real-life Tapestry application, most of the questions which appeared through my 5 month long effort were answered by this book.

In a few cases I lost my way, even having the book, and emailed to its author, Kent Tong. And he was really helpful!

What is important, you can download the first four chapters of this book (they are alone quite enough for a newcomer to begin developing with Tapestry) from Agileskills2.org website. You can also purchase a PDF version of the book from this site, plus annual subscription for renewals.

What I like the most about this book:

It helped me in so many cases! It is thoroughly practical. It is great to have its updates on a regular basis - Tapestry is developing, and the book is updated to reflect the changes.

What I didn't like about this book:

Well, nothing special, really. I just thought that for some readers it might be too action-packed, so to say, too concentrated. In less than 500 pages it leads you through plenty of everything, from basic topics to advanced, but some people would probably like to spend more time with each topic. This is why I am writing my tutorials for SitePoint.com - to make Tapestry, and this excellent book, still more accessible.

JavaServer Faces in Action

by Kito Mann

Manning Publications (January 2005)

This is a thick book: 700 paper pages plus a PDF extension, which adds another 300+ pages. So there is quite a lot of information, and written by an expert in the field. It begins from a basic example and covers virtually everything which may be needed to start building a JSF application of any complexity.

However, the book is badly structured. The same topic is introduced in several places in the book, and never exhaustively. For example, I wanted to find how to write validator methods in backing beans. In Chapter 6, "Internationalization, validators, and converters" the author devotes to this question 15 lines and says nothing about the method signature. Instead, he promises: "For more examples of using validator methods, see part 2. For details on how to write validator methods, see part 3."

In Part 3, Chapter 15 it is said that "You can also handle validation directly in backing beans with a single validator method. (For more information on validation, see chapter 6)". But we just came from chapter 6. Browsing chapters 11 and 13 also didn't reveal any examples of validator methods, at least clearly marked. So the question is just lost in the thickness of the book.

The same happens with internationalization. It is first briefly introduced in the same chapter 6, with an example of Spanish localization. Then in Chapter 10 more or less the same ideas are reintroduced again, this time with Russian localization. And then the same topic is discussed again in more details in Chapter 13. So if you want to get a general understanding of i18n in JSF you should first find all the places where the topic is discussed and then read all of them.

What I like the most about this book:

Its beginning. It shows straightaway how to build a simple JSF application, and not a worthless one, like ubiquitous "Hello World", but, although also named "Hello World", quite a representative one. So you can try and do something immediately, and so it is easier to struggle through the rest of the book.

What I didn't like:

Poor structure. The book is too verbose. And to find out everything it can tell you about virtually any topic, you have to read through the whole book.