Frank Zappa: The Complete Guide to His Music

Amazon.com

There is probably no figure of modern popular music who so deserves the sort of scholarly exercise undertaken by Ben Watson in this book, and I am personally convinced that Zappa will be regaled by 21st Century music historians as a "crux of the biscuit" of 20th Century music.

And this 700 page tome will certainly be cited by our music historian descendants. In fairness, it may confound today's Zappa fans with it's copious references to Adorno, Freud, and Marx, but is likely to delight the erudite with its excerpts of the playfully situationist lyrics of Zappa, completely deconstructed by Watson. There is no doubt that Zappa was a genius--albeit a peculiarly American sort--and there is no doubt that no book has yet attempted such a thorough (albeit peculiar) analysis of his genius. Highly Recommended.

Product Description

The indispensable consumers' guide to the music of Frank Zappa - the genius of the absurd, and one of the most prolific and unpredictable characters of 20th century music. A thorough analysis of Zappa's complete recorded output, from the early days of the Mothers Of Invention, through his more avant-garde compositions to his most recent posthumous releases. The guide features: An album by album analysis A full Zappa bibliography Details of when and where the music was recorded, including all collaborating artists A special section concerning compilation, archive and bootleg releases Sixteen pages of full-colour images

Customer Reviews:

Dense, with an Unhealthy Dose of Ego.......2007-02-22

This is the "tweezed" 2005 update to the original 1998 publication. It comes with the addition of a section on 1998-2005 releases, called "Posthumous Existence."

This book is a very serious, crowded work of Zappa deconstruction and analysis, definitely not for someone looking for an introduction into the Zappa cosmology. Watson certainly knows his stuff, whether it comes to the music, its construct and content, band membership, the history and context, but his overwrought analysis, increasingly haughty tone, and his curt dismissal of virtually all other Zappa writers and historians comes off as nothing but intolerant ego.

I got this book as a work-up to Watson's Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play. Being a solid FZ fan and prophet for a good 30 years now, I'm just a few releases short of the complete library, and have been reading up. And in reading about FZ, you can't miss the references to the massive, intimidating Ben Watson magnum opus, his Mother of all Zappa biographies/interpretations. At the same time, while these references make it clear that it's no Ulysses, one has to have a certain level of background and knowledge of FZ's work and larger issues of music and its criticism to be able to access it. This was my seventh Frank Zappa book, having read the FZ/Occhiogrosso autobiography, and the Walley, Courier, Kostelanetz, James and Lowe works. I figured I was ready to get into Watson, at least at the introductory level. But, reading this book has changed my plans; I don't think I'll be reading Negative Dialectics.

Watson comes across in this book as the worst kind of expert, the one who has complete command of the facts, never lets you forget it, and then heaps condescending scorn on every single aspect of your outlook which does not conform perfectly to his own interpretation. You get that with his snide comments on "peanut-brained `hardcore [FZ] fans'" and almost universal condemnation of authors of other FZ books, sarcastically deriding their works. I got the feeling from reading this book that the two of us would not get along, despite the fact we're both lifelong Zappa fans.

Watson's increasingly frequent references to himself and his work at first were quirky, but by the end of this short little book were just plain intrusive and egotistical. His first mention uses the journalistic third-person convention ("The author observed..."), but as the book progresses it's more and more "I," "my" and "me," with extended first-person narrative on his actions. We get more than enough references by Watson to what he wants us to know is his personally defining 1993 meeting with FZ, talks with Gail, and meetings with others in the inner circle, right down to Frank playing Watson selections from "Civilization Phaze III," in Frank's living room of course. For a book with such a high gloss of academic rigor and discipline, this increasingly frequent first-person intrusion seems a desperate and needy attempt at legitimation.

As for the density of this work, it seems Watson is over-qualified to write a guide like this. His wide-ranging, reference-rich approach and his analytical touchstones are so esoteric and academic that they're going to leave most readers weary, if not totally lost. This book has Marxism, feminism, Kafka, Plato, Samuel Beckett, Shakespeare, Goethe, the vilification of "the `political correctness' that expresses the condescension of the rich and powerful," and the loneliness of pornography, among many, many other issues, concepts, persons, movements and philosophies. I mean, seriously: "Zappa's confrontation of accident and rigour bears comparison to John Cage and Jackson Pollock and their fascination with `chance.' However, although the neo-Dadaists of Fluxus liked to say they were demolishing `high art' values, the discourse that surrounded them elevated them to a plane Zappa could not aspire to." Wut?

Early on, it's pretty clear Ryko has been involved in the preparation and/or publication of this book. Watson gives clear thanks to Ryko for its decision to re-release the entire FZ catalog. And whaddaya know, all of the Rykodisk catalog numbers are listed, but all we get for the original vinyl releases is a date. For a "complete guide," this deliberate lack of release detail is unforgivable, and smells to me as coming strictly from commercial. Go to the Billy James book for a more comprehensive discography. (The James book also is better on appendices on band members and concerts, although restricted to the MOI years.)

Layout: Major sections are the introduction, "The Verve Years," "The Bizarre Years," "Discreet," "Warner Brothers versus Laether," "The CBS Years," "'Classical' Projects," " Barking Pumpkin," "Digging the Archive," "The Final Masterpiece," (that's "Civilization Phaze III") and "Posthumous Existence." Each FZ release gets its own write-up. There are no individual write-ups for each track, although certain tracks do get extensive coverage within the album descriptions/deconstructions. There's also a very interesting and helpful appendix on which Zappa recordings are most treasured and rare.

The index is a track index only. If you're looking for specific references to your favorite track, you can find it easily. But, with all of the places, studios, personnel and musicians and academic references noted here, a comprehensive index would be extremely helpful. Note to editor: upgrade the index in the next issue.

I also note for this book, as I did for the Steely Dan guide, that the print is too small. Note to editor: up-size the print for the next edition.

Bottom line: If you're new to the world of Frank Zappa, the MOI and conceptual continuity, and are looking for a book that'll give you clear background on and observation of Frank and his music, don't choose this one. This book is written from the point of view of total familiarity with FZ and all of his music, words, performances, etc. This overly dense and distractingly author-centered work is not an entry-level book on FZ; read the FZ/Ochiogrosso book, the word from the original hungry freak.

Sure he'll like if we ever get it........2007-01-10

We ordered Nov. 21 and while there were holidays, I think they've had enough time to get up the bedside CD player we had to cancell, as missed everything.

Course he'll take this book, least he can read without the CD Player.

If THAT comes in?

Lotsa good info; infantile politics.......2007-01-09

Slipped between the pointless neo marxist claptrap (uh memo to Comrade Watson - unemployment went DOWN in the 80's, significantly)and some eyebrow raising analysis is lotsa good info about Zappa and his work. Watson knows his stuff. Everything is covered here thru about 2005. Would've liked SOME objectivity ("Just another band from LA" does in fact suck). Good buy for Zappa fans; purchase with Horowitz's "Radical Son" for insight on how to overcome childish political delusions.

FZ by Ben watson.......2006-07-26

very helpful to old and new fans of frank. the book made me reconsider and relisten to some albums again. fans... hold on to your original album copy of "Ruban & the jets" the CD is remixed??? a short handy guide. thank you ben watson.

I liked it !!!.......2006-02-26

First, I was profoundly struck by Watson' critique of Feminist Theory within Zappa's work. I never read such an analysis and found it refreshing. I saw Zappa much more of a deep thinker and an intellectual giant. Second, some of Watson's later analysis of Zappa's work seemed to be pushing the envelop to absurdity.

Currently, there seems to be no formal label for Watson's brand of humor. Bowman came to the conclusion that Watson's work can best be described as hyperbolic or benign fabrications - descriptive terms that were derived from the work of Erving Goffman. Essentially, through a series of intellectual gyration, Watson takes classical literature (throughout the ages) and draws parallels with Zappa's work.

Book Description

The American urban scene, and in particular New York's, has given us a rich cultural legacy of slang words and phrases, a bonanza of popular speech. Hot dog, rush hour, butter-and-egg man, gold digger, shyster, buttinsky, smart aleck, sidewalk superintendent, yellow journalism, breadline, straphanger, tar beach, the Tenderloin, the Great White Way, to do a Brodie--these are just a few of the hundreds of popular words and phrases that were born or took on new meaning in the streets of New York. In The City in Slang, Irving Lewis Allen traces this flowering of popular expressions that accompanied the emergence of the New York metropolis from the early nineteenth century down to the present. This unique account of the cultural and social history of America's greatest city provides in effect a lexicon of popular speech about city life. With many stories Allen shows how this vocabulary arose from city streets, often interplaying with vaudeville, radio, movies, comics, and the popular songs of Tin Pan Alley. Some terms of great pertinence to city people today have unexpectedly old pedigrees. Rush hour was coined by 1890, for instance, and rubberneck dates to the late 1890s and became popular in New York to describe the busloads of tourists who craned their necks to see the tall buildings and the sights of the Bowery and Chinatown. The Big Apple itself (since 1971 the official nickname of New York) appeared in the 1920s, though first in reference to the city's top racetracks and to Broadway bookings as pinnacles of professional endeavor. Allen also tells fascinating stories behind once-popular slang that is no longer in use. Spielers, for example, were the little girls in tenement districts who danced ecstatically on the sidewalks to the music of the hurdy-gurdy men and, when they were old enough, frequented the dance halls of the Lower East Side. Following the trail of these words and phrases into the city's East Side, West Side, and all around the town, from Harlem to Wall Street, and into the haunts of its high and low life, The City in Slang is a fascinating look at the rich cultural heritage of language about city life.

Customer Reviews:

23 Skiddoo!.......2004-06-19

Dere has been a lot written about the Noo Yawk accent, but Professon Irving Allen's "The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech" is one of the first that I know to tackle the individual phrases and words that emerged from Gotham.

Naturally, a combination of factors contributed to the genesis of slang in New York, a slang which would spread across the nation. First, because New York has always been such a dynamic city, constantly in change, constantly experimenting, new ideas have always occurred here first and faster. Logically, New Yorkers would create the informal vocabulary accompanying these innovations. Second, because the city was so welcoming of immigrants, the words they brought over, and the words that reflected their cultures, were the natural offspring. Professor Allen touches upon these and other factors but I don't want you to think the book is as dry as I'm making it sound. To the native New Yorker or to anyone outside, "The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech" is a light-hearted, enjoyable catalog of all those terms and their unique (and sometimes surprising) origins. Why is a police van called a "paddy wagon"? Find out how the word "mooch" came about. Discover the real origin of the term "rubbernecker"--it's not what you think! This is a thoroughly witty and informative book--with several illustrations--that will have you thinking in slang before you know it!

Average customer rating:
The City in Slang : New York Life and Popular Speech
Irving Lewis Allen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OK7YCS

Book Description

Detailed walkthroughs
Exhaustive stats for spells, weapons, food, and more!
Tactics for managing your money
A guide to every location: underground caverns, cities, forests, and everywhere in between
Specific combat moves for each monster

Customer Reviews:

Not worth it.......2000-01-20

This is perhaps the worst guide Prima has ever put out in my opinion. There are no maps and the level narrative is a joke and next to useless. It would have taken no more than a few hours to write the guides, and days to write the information about spells, armour etc, obviously to "pad" up the book. Get your help off the net and save your money.

No help at all.......1999-11-21

Do not buy this book! There is no maps for the levels or anything. This is a complete waste of money. The book just expanded on some stuff that was in the manual when you bought the game. \

If you can find the free manual by the Stratos Group you're in much better shape.

Book Description

With literally hundreds of examples and thousands of lines of code, the Java Servlet and JSP Cookbook yields tips and techniques that any Java web developer who uses JavaServer Pages or servlets will use every day, along with full-fledged solutions to significant web application development problems that developers can insert directly into their own applications. Java Servlet and JSP Cookbook presents real-world problems, and provides concise, practical solutions to each. Finding even one tested code "recipe" that solves a gnarly problem in this comprehensive collection of solutions and best practices will save hours of frustration--easily justifying the cost of this invaluable book. But "Java Servlet and JSP Cookbook" is more than just a wealth of cut-and-paste code. It also offers clear explanations of how and why the code works, warns of potential pitfalls, and directs you to sources of additional information, so you can learn to adapt the problem-solving techniques to similar situations. These recipes include vital topics like the use of Ant to setup a build environment, extensive coverage of the WAR file format and web.xml deployment descriptor, file-uploading, error-handling, cookies, logging, dealing with non-HTML content, multimedia, request filtering, web services, I18N, web services, and a host of other topics that frustrate even the most seasoned developers. For Java web developers of all levels who are eager to put into practice the theory presented in other API-focused books, the solutions presented in this practical book will prove invaluable over and over again. This is painless way for less experienced developers who prefer to learn by doing to expand their skills and productivity, while accomplishing practical solutions to the pressing problems they face every day. More experienced developers can use these recipes to solve time-consuming problems quickly, freeing up their time for the more creative aspects of their work.

Customer Reviews:

You want to write Servlets & JSP's - Buy This!.......2006-04-07

I'm not a big reviewer. I find writing a challenge, even if it's a positive experience, as it is now. I started learning Java a few months ago and bought a number of books on the topics I needed to really create a java website.
I stumbled on this book as one of the ten or so I purchased.

I haven't touched the other's since. This book has it all, written so clearly that you know the author is very familiar with her subject and understands it thouroughly. It was written in 2003 and discusses Tomcat server as release 4.0 but that does not matter one bit. I was truly able to use this book to put together a website. Servlet, jsp, even java script is covered. I found many questions I had assembled reading the other books being answered in this one.
Murach's books should be proud of this and I notice that they don't publish a 100 books on a subject; just have a few. I'll bet they're just as good.

Precisely the book I've been dreaming of..........2004-10-07

This book is exactly what it claims to be: a general reference to hundreds of "everyday" situations Java Web developers face. Just as any cookbook, it doesn't go into the "deepest" details about every little thing, and it does give examples of ways to not reinvent the wheel. Some reviewers see this as worthy of only 1 star... This is only a 1 star book for readers who like to reinvent the wheel and waste time on unnecessary details... if you're like me and have deadlines to meet, you'll find what you need here quickly and efficiently.

Hampered by use of custom libraries.......2004-09-07

Being an O'Reilly fan it is hard for me to find fault with their no-nonsense approach to technical books, but there is one MAJOR issue I have with this book.

As a developer for a major corporation I cannot use custom libraries for my work, especially when the license (http://www.servlets.com/cos/license.html) does not allow for commercial use. Where it would be helpful to see details on creating say, a multipart request class, Bruce Perry instead uses the com.oreilly.servlet.MultipartRequest class to hide much of the functionality (this is just one example).

This makes little or no sense. Developers in the real world need real examples. Hiding the implementation of such under the non-commercial license pretty much ruins much of the potential application of an otherwise well written book. If you buy this book realise that only some of it will actually be useful in the real world.

Very good bridge from theory to practical..........2004-03-15

Target Audience
Web developers who are looking for real-life examples of the use of servlets and JSP.

Contents
This is a companion-type book that goes beyond strictly reference material to the use of different servlet and JSP features, along with working examples of code to illustrate the concepts.

The book is divided multiple chapters that each cover a different technique or function:

Writing Servlets and JSPs; Deploying Servlets and JSPs; Naming Your Servlets; Using Apache Ant; Altering the Format of JSPs; Dynamically Including Content In Servlets and JSPs; Handling Web Form Data in Servlets and JSPs; Uploading Files; Handling Exceptions in Web Applications; Reading And Setting Cookies; Session Tracking; Integrating JavaScript with Servlets And JSPs; Sending Non-HTML Content; Logging Messages from Servlets and JSPs; Authenticating Clients; Binding, Accessing, and Removing Attributes in Web Applications; Embedding Multimedia in JSPs; Working With The Client Request; Filtering Request and Responses; Managing Email In Servlets and JSPs; Accessing Databases; Using Custom Tag Libraries; Using The JSTL; Internationalization; Using JNDI and Enterprise JavaBeans; Harvesting Web Information; Using the Google and Amazon Web APIs

Review
I really like the O'Reilly Cookbook series. I read a lot as part of my ongoing study, and often it's easy to understand conceptually what is going on. But making the jump to practical solutions can be difficult at times. The Cookbook series gets plenty of use on my bookshelf as I do my day to day coding. And when it comes to servlet and JSP coding as I continue to learn more about Websphere Application Server, this book will surely become dog-eared like the rest of them. Bruce Perry has done a great job.

As with most Cookbook titles, each chapter in the Servlet And JSP Cookbook is made up of a number of Problem/Solution/Discussion groupings. This format proposes a coding problem, states the solution to solve it, and then devotes the necessary space to discuss the solution both with text and code. By using this format, you can think through a working solution and determine how to apply that technique to your own problem. Perry covers a wide range of problems that will help both the beginner and the experienced coder. For beginners, the solutions for setting cookies with servlets and JSPs may be just what you need to get started. Experienced people will find the internationalization and JNDI/Enterprise JavaBeans solutions useful. I appreciate the fact that coders of all experience levels can get something out of this book.

The only caveat I have on this book is that it is very focused on the Tomcat and WebLogic web application servers. If that's your platform of choice, you're going to get everything this book has to offer. For me, I'm partial to the WebSphere platform. While I will benefit from a lot of this book, there are chapters that will have no appeal to me, such as using the Ant package. I will also need to pay attention to the coding examples to make sure that the techniques are coded correctly for my platform of choice. Even with that warning, I would still highly recommend this book to all coders working in this area.

Conclusion
This is definitely a title that will be useful to you as you learn more about servlet and JSP programming. It will give you the ideas you need to solve real business problems you'll encounter as a developer.

Must-have book for any Servlet/JSP developer.......2004-03-05

In the great tradition of cookbooks, O'Reilly has published the Java Servlet and JSP Cookbook. This book, written by Bruce W. Perry is a must-own book for anyone working with web applications in the Java space. I've been a Java developer for almost 8 years now and have been working with Servlets since early 1999 and I've learned quite a few things from this book.

The Java Servlet & JSP Cookbook provides more than 200 'recipes' or fully working and documented code snippets that you can directly cut-and-paste in your application. The book starts off with a quick intro to writing servlets and JSP pages. I was very impressed that the first JSP page that you write uses JSTL and is not loaded up with scriptlet code. I am just sick and tired of arguing with people with scriptlets are bad and it's nice to see a book that starts off with JSTL. Kudos Bruce.

Once the intro is complete, you move onto writing deployment descriptors, deployment along with a nice little chapter on Ant. One of the most common question after people deploy JSP based application is the idea of precompiling JSPs for performance reasons. The fifth chapter does a great job of suggesting several methods of precompiling JSPs. I should also mention that the book includes how-to guides for Tomcat and WebLogic, which covers a pretty large landscape of web containers. WebSphere, Resin, Jetty are not directly covered.

The book then moves on and covers topics such as handling Form data via POST/GET, uploading files, cookies, session tracking and URL rewriting. There is also a chapter on JavaScript and how they use JavaScript with servlets. I don't really understand the point of this chapter as most users just need a few cut-n-paste JavaScript for client-side FORM validation. There is also a chapter on streaming non-HTML content such as PDF, audio/video files and others to the browser.

I also liked the chapter of logging in Servlets and JSPs. This chapter includes a nice introduction to Log4j and a nice tag library that uses Log4j under the cover. My favorite chapter in this book was the chapter dealing with authentication. The chapter starts off by talking setting users in Tomcat and then moves into setting up BASIC authentication. The next recipe talks about using Form-based authentication. The chapter is rounded off with a good treatment of the Java Authentication and Authorization service (JAAS). In this chapter, you create your own custom LoginModule and then use JAAS in a servlet and JSP.

There is also a chapter about embedding multimedia content inside JSPs. This is not something I'm really interested in and I just glossed over this chapter. The same goes for the next chapter on manipulation of the HttpRequest. The next chapter does a great job of exploring Servlet Filters, which is a great feature introduced in the Servlet 2.3 specification that hasn't really caught on. Filters are great and the book includes some great examples of how best to use them.

The next section includes chapters on sending, accessing email from servlets along with database access. Most complex application usually will implement some backend service to access database and separate the business logic from the data and the data from the UI, but the included recipes will help get you up and running for simple application.

I really liked the section on custom tag libraries and JSTL. Tag Libraries are a great way to avoid scriptlet code in JSPs. The chapter on JSTL is also fairly comprehensive and includes code snippets for the core, XML, format, and SQL tags. There is also a great section on the Expression Language (EL) which has been migrated from JSTL 1.0 to the JSP 2.0 specification.

I could go on about this book but I won't bore you any longer, assuming you are still reading. I highly recommend this book for anyone doing any type of Web development using Servlet and JSPs. I mentioned this earlier, but I've been writing Servlets and JSPs for the past 5 years and I've learned quite a few things from this book. Add this book to your library today. The code for this book is available on O'Reilly dot com

Average customer rating:

Good book for those use to simpler editors

too much padding

Handy Starters' Reference to Eclipse

Somewhat basic for a cookbook...

Very good reference for Eclipse.

Eclipse Cookbook
Steven Holzner
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Eclipse Eclipse

Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide

Ant: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Java(TM) Developer's Guide to Eclipse, The (2nd Edition)

Eclipse Distilled (The Eclipse Series)

ASIN: 0596007108

Book Description

You've probably heard the buzz about Eclipse, the powerful open source platform that gives Java developers a new way to approach development projects. It's like a shiny new car--no longer content to just admire Eclipse, you're now itching to get in and drive. Eclipse is to Java developers what Visual Studio is to .NET developers--it's an integrated development environment (IDE) that combines a code editor, compiler, debugger, text editor, graphical user interface (GUI) builder, and other components into a single, user-friendly application. It provides a solid foundation that enables Java developers to construct and run integrated software-development tools for web development, application design, modeling, performance, testing, and much more. As with any extensive programming tool, however, there's a lot to learn. And there s no better guy than well-known Java expert Steve Holzner to teach you. An award-winning and best-selling author who has been writing about Java topics since the language first appeared, Holzner delivers just the kind of targeted, practical, everyday knowledge you need to hone your mastery of Eclipse. Perfect as a companion to an Eclipse programming tutorial (such as Holzner's own Eclipse, O'Reilly, April 2004) or an ideal stand-alone for all those developers who either don't want or don't need the tutorial approach, the Eclipse Cookbook contains task-oriented recipes for more than 800 situations you may encounter while using this new Java platform--from deploying a web application automatically to reverse engineering compiled code, from re-naming all references to a class across multiple packages to initializing the SWT JNI libraries. Each recipe in the ever-popular and utterly practical problem-solution-discussion format for O'Reilly cookbooks contains a clear and thorough description of the problem, a brief but complete discussion of a solution, and in-action examples illustrating that solution. The Eclipse Cookbook will satiate Java programmers at all levels who are ready to go beyond tutorials--far beyond writing plug-ins and extensions--and actually use the powerful and convenient Eclipse day to day.

Customer Reviews:

Good book for those use to simpler editors.......2005-04-07

I was use to using a much simpler editor for writing Java code. This book did a very good job helping with learning how to use Eclipse.

too much padding.......2005-01-13

The book has some useful information, but does not
go beyond the very basic. In light of this, it is
annoying that so much space is taken up with repeated
samples of the same code, and with more screen shots
than are needed. I've encountered this before in one
of Mr. Holzner's books (XML Complete), and I have to
wonder if this is done to pad the book to a length
that justifies the cost.

Handy Starters' Reference to Eclipse.......2004-12-05

After getting used to the fundamentals of the Java programming language, a versatile integrated development environment like Eclipse would bring developers to next level of productivity, and Eclipse Cookbook is handy for the start. Readers are guided step-by-step with numerous illustrations about its support for tasks from creating packages, classes, methods to refactoring, and debugging. The book demonstrates Eclipse 2.1.2 with the difference of early release of version 3.0 being mentioned. Now when versions 3.0.1 and 3.1M are readily available, you might need to resort to online help for the exact updated steps. You will find the use of application programming interface of platform dependent SWT for building GUI with both AWT and Swing being mixed. However, it gets nothing to do with the drag-and-drop style of building graphical components. Web development is included but too concise. No elaborated features like performance profiling or modeling tool of round-trip development are described. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to introduce to target audience with various commonly referred plug-ins on tasks like integrating with different kinds of version control, validating XML, modeling UML, and J2EE support.

Somewhat basic for a cookbook..........2004-10-04

A recent addition to my Eclipse library has been Eclipse Cookbook by Steve Holzner (O'Reilly). It works well for my level of expertise at the package, but experienced users might find it lacking...

Chapter list: Basic Skills; Using Eclipse; Java Development; Refactoring, Building, and Launching; Testing and Debugging; Using Eclipse in Teams; Eclipse and Ant; SWT: Text, Buttons, Lists and Nonretangular Windows; SWT: Dialogs, Toolbars, Menus, and More; SWT: Coolbars, Tab Folders; Trees, and Browsers; JSP, Servlets, and Eclipse; Creating Plug-ins: Extension Points, Actions, and Menus; Creating Plug-ins: Wizards, Editors, and Views; Index

Like all O'Reilly cookbooks, this follows the standard formula. A problem is presented, a short two or three line solution is given, and then there's a discussion and fuller explanation of the answer. There are plenty of screen shots and coding examples to help you through each of the recipes.

Overall, the book will benefit new and intermediate users. The author covers quite a few of the features of Eclipse that make it so powerful, like refactoring, running the debugger, and other various tasks. You may know that these exist but not know how to use them, or you just may be ignorant of the fact that they even exist. In that sense, it's really good. The SWT portion seems to be more centered on programming with Eclipse as a secondary focus. Maybe because it's because I don't do SWT development, but it just seemed to be a bit out of place. The material also seems to be pretty basic for a cookbook. Usually the recipes are more beyond the basics and get into things that aren't quite as intuitive as they might be.

This will help me get up to speed on Eclipse, and I do like the book. I'm just not sure it's for everyone...

Very good reference for Eclipse........2004-09-28

Prof. Steve Holzner is an authority in Java and has many books to his credit. Prof. Holzner's

expertise and patience is well brought in this book with adequate explanation of the different aspects

of Eclipse.

The book is full of screen prints that adequately explain how the screen would look while using the

built-in features of eclipse. the author has taken the time to take different scenarios and ways to

work around the different problems encountered while using the tool to develop Java applications. to

demonstrate some of the features, the author debugs a sample program and identifies the errors

commonly encountered and ways to resolve the errors.

as mentioned at the beginning book, this book does not intend to teach programming aspects of Java but

the features and the nuances built in the tool. The author has taken the time to explain how the

tool integrates with ANT and TOMCAT.

although this book was written with Eclipse 2.x, the author indicates the features that would be built

in eclipse 3.x. the author's style is simple and straight to the point. it is a well written book

and an excellent reference on eclipse 3.0. the book has earned a place in my shelf.

Average customer rating:

Java Servlet & JSP Cookbook
Bruce W Perry
Manufacturer: O'reilly
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K1YWCQ

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