Slashdot Mirror
Professional Apache Tomcat
The book covers every aspect of installing and configuring Tomcat in a great deal of depth, detailing its every aspect. From standalone use (where Tomcat is used as a general web server as well as for serving Java content), to integration with the leading web servers Apache (both Unix and Windows versions) and Microsoft's Internet Information Services, nothing appears to have been left out (however, integration with Netscape's Enterprise Server is mentioned in passing early on, but doesn't appear again).
Being only a month old, it's pretty much bang up to date, covering Tomcat 3.x, 4.0.x and 4.1.x with Apache 1.3.x and 2.0.x and IIS 4 and 5.
The book starts with an introduction to the Apache project, and Tomcat's place in the wider scheme of things. The historical progression in serving dynamic web content from CGI to Servlets and JSP is charted, and there's an overview of JSP tags and general web application architecture. This is interesting enough and useful as background, but as this book is intended for administrators, it's covered quickly in the first two chapters, and the main business of installing Tomcat gets underway in chapter 3.
Installation is discussed with both Windows and Linux users in mind, from both binary and source distributions. As the Tomcat source is usually built with Ant, build and installation of this tool is also discussed (Ant and Log4j, both also part of Jakarta, get chapters of their own later in the book). From there, basic configuration of the standalone server followed by detailed examinations of the components that make up Tomcat's architecture fills the next 200 or so pages.
Serious users of Tomcat will wish to employ Tomcat with an existing web server, and four chapters concentrate on this job. There is more emphasis on Apache than IIS, though given Apache's dominance of the web server field, this is understandable. There is inevitably a certain amount of detail aimed at Apache and IIS configuration, and a basic knowledge of both is assumed throughout. However, any necessary information is included in detail; for example the (Apache) connector modules mod_webapp and mod_jk/jk2 are given a thorough treatment, describing their use from source installation to configuration, together with the pros and cons of the various connectors available. Beyond that, we learn how to design larger-scale setups, with an explanation of load balancing techniques and scaling of the system, and performance testing with JMeter, yet another Jakarta project component.
As ever, security is a major concern and gets a lot of emphasis. Before client authentication and the use of SSL are discussed, there's an overview of basic system security with Unix and Windows. This should be teaching granny to suck eggs for a book aimed at administrators, but it's only a few pages and completes the subject. More interesting are the sections on security realms and user/client authentication. We are presented with examples of authenticating against a MySQL database with JDBC (database connectivity with JDBC is a big enough subject in its own right, and so gets a separate chapter too), and digest authentication. We then move on to encryption with SSL: using Tomcat itself with the JSSE and PureTLS Java SSL implementations, then later with Apache and SSL (setting up mod_ssl with Apache gets a very useful appendix of its own, taken from Professional Apache 2.0, another Wrox book). Again, there's lots of detail, right down to how to get hold of signed certificates for your server. Here the book's general emphasis on Apache over IIS is most apparent, as SSL with IIS is not discussed at all. However, I have no experience with IIS, so I can't say for sure how serious this omission might be.
There's a very brief appendix on setting up Apache's Axis SOAP toolkit, but without any mention of SOAP appearing elsewhere in the book. As other concepts are introduced so well, it's a curious addition.
With nine co-authors (though only four got onto the cover photograph - I wonder if they drew straws?), one might expect wildly different styles throughout the book, but each chapter is consistently and clearly laid out with diagrams and relevant configuration file fragments where necessary. There's little levity and it's all written in a very business-like manner, but then this is hardly a subject you'd choose for holiday reading.
Professional Apache Tomcat is surely the definitive book on the subject. I recently used it to integrate Tomcat 4 with an existing Apache 2 installation, and everything went very smoothly. More than just a set of tutorials, it offers a thorough description of the whole architecture, and makes an excellent companion to either of Wrox's Professional Apache books.
There's no CD with the book, but Wrox's website provides some support code, and there are lively forums for readers at p2p.wrox.com.
You can purchase Professional Apache Tomcat from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Apache and Professional should not be in the same sentence.
Neither should Red Hat.
Cunning linguists
The is an attempt at fp.
w00t.
w00t
Will this be the proper IIS neutering tool???
Yup, beat it in 2 days. Fun game, not much replay value though. Always good to have a tips book if you're not as skilled as me, though. Look out for level 7.
Looks like another marketing ploy from the Apache people, trying to fit the problems to the solution. Nothing in there to get excited about.
Tomcat's documentation is superior and it is so very simple to use. I don't think a book on the subject is really necessary. Perhaps if you are doing something extremely out-of-the-ordinary when you plug tomcat into JBoss, but it would be more of a JBoss issue than a tomcat issue.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
A bit like "Advanced use of .htaccess" or "Windows Start Menu volume 1"?
I'd like to see it marking its territory over IIS's front yard ;)
Definitively Tomcat is THE SERVER, in servlet and jsp field. Maybe is slow in static content, but is the reference implementation.
LA CORUNA, Spain -- One of the world's worst environmental disasters was feared to be under way as the crippled oil tanker Prestige split in two and began sinking off Spain's north-west coast.
CNN's Al Goodman reported that all that was showing was the battered bow section of the Prestige about 200 kilometres (130 miles) off the coastline in Atlantic waters 3,600 metres (11,880 feet) deep.
The rear section of the Prestige earlier went down taking much of the 24,000 tonnes of oil in its tanks with it, a spokesman for the Dutch salvage company Smit Salvage said.
Environmental group WWF had previously warned that if all the fuel oil leaked, it would be one of the largest oil leaks in the world -- about twice as big as the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989.
The Bahamian-flagged tanker, carrying 70,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, ran into trouble off the northwest coast of Spain during a violent storm last Wednesday when one of its tanks was punctured due to unknown causes and around 5,000 tonnes of oil flowed out.
Spanish officials -- who have been trying to clean up oil that has already spilled from the tanker over the last six days -- scrambled to protect the coast of northwestern Spain where fishing is the primary industry.
The clean-up effort, they speculated, might take as long as four years.
Spain said it would push to bring forward the date to ban from European waters single-hulled tankers like the Prestige and insist on double-hulled vessels.
Meanwhile EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio sent a letter to the 15 EU capitals on Tuesday urging that they move faster to enforce new inspection rules that could prevent such catastrophes. The measures should be written into national law and implemented as quickly as possible, she said.
Goodman said that authorities were "bracing for the worst" with threats to the fishing industry, birdlife and beaches.
He said the regional economy was starting to "shiver and shudder" and economic damage could reach 100 million euros ($100m).
The slick is threatening a stretch of the coast from Cape Finisterre to La Coruna
An oil slick 70 miles long and five miles wide was reported even before the ship split in two, Goodman said.
CNN's Juliet Bremner reported from the scene that barrages, which have been laid to try to contain the spill, were considered to be useless because of the volume of fuel involved.
She described how an anguished local fisherman had crossed himself, pointed to the coastline and repeated: "A disaster, a disaster."
Dr Ian White, managing director of the International Tanker Owners' Pollution Federation, said that heavy fuel oil was "one of the most difficult oils to deal with."
It was thick, heavy, persistent and sticky and would not be dispersed even by heavy seas, he said.
The tanker leaked fuel into the rich fishing grounds off Spain's northwest coast and the government warned that the oil could seep into some of the many inlets that penetrate the Galicia coast like crooked fingers.
The ship is roughly on the border of areas for which Spain and Portugal have responsibility for maritime rescue operations, the ministry added.
Portugal and Spain had both barred salvagers from towing the ship to any of their ports to protect their fishing and tourism industries from further damage.
The shoreline is known as the "coast of death" because of many shipwrecks there.
Regional authorities have temporarily banned fishing in an area famous for its shellfish, octopus and crabs.
"We've had accidents before but nothing like this. If many fish die, will they ever come back?" Federico Martinez Vidal, a fisherman in the town of Camelle, told The Associated Press.
On Monday two Spanish tugboats had tried to pull the tanker as far away from the coast as possible. When it split it was listing about 130 kilometres (70 nautical miles) from the Galician coast.
The Spanish Government's decision to tow the Prestige further out to sea and set up barriers, coupled with a change in wind direction, had first raised hopes a disaster could be averted.
Spain says the vessel was bound for Gibraltar when the spill happened, a charge Britain denies.
Spain and the European Union have criticised Latvia, where the boat was loaded with much of its fuel, and Britain, which has jurisdiction over Gibraltar.
Both have accused Britain and Gibraltar of failing to comply with shipping safety regulations -- a charge they both deny.
The tanker's Greek captain was being held in custody after five hours of questioning by a judge in La Coruna on Sunday. (Full story)
Maritime authorities allege he failed to cooperate with rescue crews after issuing a distress call.
For hours as the Prestige drifted perilously close to shore, he refused to let tugboats secure cables to his stricken ship, officials said.
The tanker is owned by the Greek company Mare Shipping Incorporated.
Spain's north-west coast has suffered several tanker accidents in recent years, the worst in December 1992 when the Greek tanker Aegean Sea lost 21.5 million gallons of crude oil when it ran aground near La Coruna.
Dr. White said the investigation into the ship's breaking up would be sure to look at whether it would have been avoided if the move to compulsory double-hulled tankers from single-hulled had gone ahead sooner.
There is no justice, I never went to comdex.
Now it's a shell filled with tired hippies and corporate suits.
Oh, what is Apache? Some kind of jab at the American Indians?
Do you also have Little Black Sambo software?
How about ChinkWare?
you racist bastards
burn in hell racist pigs
Every latest wrox book is a common recipe:
- Take a red cover;
- Fast time-to-market, by any means;
- By any means, i mean: "-Oh, we need a book about Tomcat, sure... Hey, call India. How much chapters we need? Fifteen? Yeah right, ill pay each Indian R$ 10 per chapter... But i want fifteen authors involved".
- Takes either the most handsome or the most weird, depending on their looks. Makes a professional quality-looking photo. Merge with the cover.
Whats next? Shipments from New Delhi and Bombay?
Tomcat is a subproject of the Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta project, its purpose being to serve Java Servlets and JavaServer Pages. It's a complex piece of software and though the documentation is very comprehensive, it helps to have a good reference work to hand. There aren't many books on the subject to choose from, so a publisher could make a fast buck putting out an incomplete work lacking in depth. Fortunately Wrox Press has excelled itself with its new publication Professional Apache Tomcat.
...one might expect wildly different styles throughout the book, but each chapter is consistently and clearly laid out with diagrams and relevant configuration file fragments where necessary. At each stage, variations between different versions of each component are made clear.
The book covers every aspect of installing and configuring Tomcat in a great deal of detail, detailing its every aspect. From standalone use (where Tomcat is used as a general web server as well as for serving Java content), to integration with the leading web servers Apache (both Unix and Windows versions) and Microsoft's Internet Information Services, nothing appears to have been left out (however, integration with Netscape's Enterprise Server is mentioned in passing early on, but doesn't appear again).
Being only a month old, it's pretty much bang up to date, covering Tomcat 3.x, 4.0.x and 4.1.x with Apache 1.3.x and 2.0.x and IIS 4 and 5.
The book starts with an introduction to the Apache project, and Tomcat's place in the wider scheme of things. The historical progression in serving dynamic web content from CGI to Servlets and JSP is charted, and there's an overview of JSP tags and general web application architecture. This is interesting enough and useful as background, but as this book is intended for administrators, it's covered quickly in the first two chapters, and the main business of installing Tomcat gets underway in chapter 3.
Installation is discussed with both Windows and Linux users in mind, from both binary and source distributions. As the Tomcat source is usually built with Ant, build and installation of this tool is also discussed (Ant and Log4j, both also part of Jakarta, get chapters of their own later in the book). From there, basic configuration of the standalone server followed by detailed examinations of the components that make up Tomcat's architecture fill the next 200 or so pages.
Serious users of Tomcat will wish to employ Tomcat with an existing web server, and four chapters concentrate on this job. Though there is inevitably a certain amount of detail aimed at Apache and IIS configuration, and a basic knowledge of both is assumed throughout. However, any necessary information is included in detail; for example the (Apache) connector modules mod_webapp and mod_jk/jk2 are given a thorough treatment, describing their use from source installation to configuration, together with the pros and cons of the various connectors available. Beyond that, we learn how to design larger-scale setups, with an explanation of load balancing techniques and scaling of the system, and performance testing with JMeter, yet another Jakarta project component.
As ever, security is a major concern and gets a lot of emphasis. Before client authentication and the use of SSL are discussed, there's an overview of basic system security with Unix and Windows..... More interesting are the sections on security realms and user/client authentication. We are presented with examples of authenticating against a MySQL database with JDBC (database connectivity with JDBC is a big enough subject in its own right, and so gets a separate chapter too), and digest authentication. We then move on to encryption with SSL: using Tomcat itself with the JSSE and PureTLS Java SSL implementations, then later with Apache and SSL (setting up mod_ssl with Apache gets a very useful appendix of its own, taken from Professional Apache 2.0, another Wrox book). Again, there's lots of detail, right down to how to get hold of signed certificates for your server. Here the book's general emphasis on Apache over IIS is most apparent, as SSL with IIS is not discussed at all. However, I have no experience with IIS, so I can't say for sure how important this omission might be.
With nine co-authors (though only four got onto the cover photograph -
Professional Apache Tomcat is surely the definitive book on the subject. I recently used it to integrate Tomcat 4 with an existing Apache 2 installation, and everything went very smoothly. More than just a set of tutorials it offers a thorough description of the whole architecture, and makes an excellent companion to Wrox's Professional Apache.
Compared to Weblogic and especially Websphere, it's so incredibly simple it's silly. (Websphere especially is a *nightmare* to install and configure.)
Well we all know we are safe from IIs, no more of those exploits!
Civilization at it's best! www.hydratech.org
What amuses/amazes me is that Tomcat is so complex and bloaty. Java really sucks!
Why not just pipe stuff to a Lisp process, or use Zope???
www.cgisecurity.com/lib
I am a professor at a large technical college. I use Tomcat in my Distributed Java class and I have to say this is one of the finest books on Tomcat I have seen. I have recommended this book to all of my students.
The book is well-laid out (moreso than most of the GNU/Hippy students!). It offers a good overview of all of the major pieces of functionality in Tomcat and does a particularly good job of describing the different manners which you can integrate Tomcat and Apache.
My only complaint might be that the section on Axis was extremly light-weight. I would have loved to see more detail in this chapter, even though the information in the chapter was a good starter.
I for one WELCOME our new computer overlords...
How come I see so many - "This is a great book, buy it!" posts by Anonymous Coward in here. If Mr. - sorry - "Professor" Coward is willing to testify, why do it anonymously?
I have no opinion on whether this is a good book or not, but I get the feeling that the authors/publishers are hyping this book. Which makes me think that it won't be purchased on its own merits, which means that this book is a piece of crap.
But that's just my outlook. Please feel free to form your own opinion.
This is a troll. Moderators are taking the information to be truth with the extreme lack of detail. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
Having used Tomcat quite a bit, some things aren't as easy as they should be. Doing a simple stand alone installation takes only a few minutes on a clean system, but frequently the system has weird configurations. There are certain things Tomcat documentation could use improvement, so the book is a nice addition. Often I find documentation is written for those with experience and isn't written in plain english for newbies. Looking at the number of posts on tomcat-user mailing list, more than half the questions are due to user error and documentation. More documentation is always a good thing. well most of the time.
All in all, good work Wrox!
Huh?
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
We have been using Tomcat for almost 3 years now and we haven't had any unscheduled downtime yet.
We first started to use it as a development platform. The idea was, "let's develop a Servlet/JSP based application and we will choose later the production server". We wanted to test the application/web servers on our specific application. We though we will end up buying some commercial application. But when the time came to go to production Tomcat had proved itself. It was more than good enough.
We know we can get some extra performance by switching to other web servers, but we don't really need to, Tomcat is more than fast enough. Considering in the global performance of the application, the impact of Tomcat is minimal, as opposed to the database or the LDAP. Our time is better spend improving the database side of the app. Besides Tomcat is very easy to use the source code is very easy to read (as opposed to other open source projects).
At this point, if we switch platform it will be to base our application on JBoss (maybe hooking Tomcat to it). We are not yet convinced that EJBs will benefit our application, but we are seriously considering using JMS.
We are building our application in Java with Netbeans and deploying our apps in Tomcat and Linux. Our dev cost is very low or is 10% to .Net workshop. Our site is internal and it has very few issues and the apps are very stable and can take a lot of beating. We are looking at TogetherJ for our IDE to do some modelling for our future projects
I think Java and Linux is the future
We see that more and more
Pick one up for $33: http://www.bookpool.com/.x/hjjcwf9yt6/ss/1?qs=Prof essional+Apache+Tomcat&Go.x=14&Go.y=9&Go=G o
Picked up that one yesterday. I bought it cause Rick Hightower (Java Tools for Extreme Programming) wrote the chapter on struts and ant/xdoclet. I haven't been able to go through the whole thing yet, but I need good reference info and insight into how the new Jasper2 engine handles caching of tag libs and some of the quirks that come up in JSP/Servlet development WRT insuring clean separation of data in the various scopes. I'm also very interested in seeing how struts and the JSTL should behave in the container.
I don't think this info is very well covered in the Tomcat docs, dealing with Tomcat development is not the same as the '.htaccess' file as one poster suggested. If your trying to work out why the other guy's JSP/custom taglib stuff isn't as portable as it should be between containers, you really need this type of info.
I'm dissapointed the reviewer sort of glossed over this book, he mentioned the architectural info in the last paragraph, and highlighted all the crap that's already talked about in the Tomcat docs.
I already read most of the open source J2EE/dev mailing lists and visit numerous authors blogs. Trying to tie all this stuff together, while figuring out where it's all headed and discerning the best practices is a bit of a daunting task. The differences between the Jasper and Jasper2 engines is a lot of info, combine with the state of Jakarta-Commons, the rise of Jelly and Maven, and AOP + XRAI coming down the pipe in XDoclet2 and you've got a lot of material to pour through that isn't well documented yet. (ok that's a little out of scope for these 2 books)
I need good books that really help me to formulate development methodologies that scale up and promote efficiency when doing full J2EE app development.
So does anyone have any reading recommendations that will help sort all this out? Should I get this book too, or stick with Mastering Tomcat Development?
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Specifically, an overview of the JServ unistall, Tomcat install on RedHat Linux, and a document that describes config file changes that will be needed.
If so, then maybe I need to get you in touch
with our sys-admins.
we (they) have had a horrid time getting Tomcat
stable on development servers. Something about
not releasing memory or something.
I have not been impressed with Wrox books in the past. Too many of them have so many authors that the book's focus is poor. Even one Wrox book I have with two authors has examples so mired in their own utility library that I lost track of what the example were trying to accomplish and how. Plus about 1/4th of the book was incomplete reprints of Javadocs and specs that I can get over net (why enclose CDs any longer?).
That said, I will definately check this book out. We use Tomcat a great deal (with Apache and IIS) and the more info, the better.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Speaking from personal experience, Tomcat is a great piece of software, and the project has come a long way. The one issue that needs to be worked on, though, is speed. Tomcat is not very fast at most tasks, but I am sure with time they will optimize and fix this.
Now, aside from the irony of the slashdot review pimping the book for barnes & noble, under the Amazon.com terms of service, all reviews become exclusive property of Amazon.com.
Like it or not, this is just as serious of a licensing breach as if Microsoft Word included emacs code.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Instead, use the money to license a copy of Resin which is, for lack of a better description, Tomcat on Nitro. It follows the reference implementation of JSP and Servlets just as well as Tomcat does, and even the default configuration, which is tuned for development, outperforms Tomcat.
The configuration of Resin is almost exactly like the config of Tomcat, so I honestly don't see why you'd pick Tomcat over Resin (unless you were having trouble getting the 1.2 or 1.3 JDK installed on your FreeBSD box, something that is historically difficult to do).
A while back, I wrote and published a straightforward how-to for integrating Jakarta into Apache (getting Jakarta to share port 80 with Apache as opposed to using 8080).
h tml
So... if anyone is interested:
http://wass.homelinux.net/howtos/Jakarta_How-To.s
I got my copy last week, and have been flipping through it for a few days now. My company recently launched their new web presence (shameless plug: iGames.com) on Tomcat (with SQL 2000 Enterprise on the backend). I have been using tomcat for quite a long time, but mostly in the "out of the box" mode. Now that I needed to delve into it a bit further (like trying to figure out how to get it to log to one damn log file, instead of doing Daily logs! ). I was also under the impression that this book would help me with the "finer" tuning and tweaking of the JVM for Tomcat. It has helped somewhat, but I still get occasional hanging, which is easily remidied by restarting tomcat (not the solution I need, next step, connection pooling!). Overall, I think the book is a good reference, it covers some topics that I have searched far and wide to find on the newsgroups, and couldnt.
I've been looking for more information regarding Tomcat. The docs which come with the product don't provide all the information I need. Also their web site is basically a mirror of the docs in the product.
Any direction would be appreciated.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Actually, if you subscribe to the user mailing list I don't think you'd say this. I managed to get by with just the online documentation and google, but is seems like there are quite a few people who can't. Every day we get asked about Apache/Tomcat binding and help with various server.xml and web.xml problems.
I never understand how some people can't use the resources available. Hell, the mailing list archive is online and people can't figure out that they should search there before asking the list. The list is running at about 50+ messages a day. Obviously someone needs this book.
I know someone that covers their wrox books so they don't see the glazed stares of the authors. I just scratch their eyes out with a pocketknife. The covers of my Oreilly books never weird me out....
love is just extroverted narcissism
For tomcat to do this would require a bug that would show up on all platforms (ie maintaining strong refs to unneeded objects). Perhaps it is the Solaris VM? Hmmm, I doubt it... Perhaps it is your developers ;-)
My favorite quote in the review:
"This should be teaching granny to suck eggs for a book aimed at administrators, but it's only a few pages and completes the subject."
http://www.WinWithRealEstate.com/
I second this!
They need improving a lot. Everything is in there but it is not clearly laid out. The logic is often wrong.
My HOWTO integrate Tomcat/postgresql/Dreamweaver Ultradev was an attempt at helping the lower end of application programmers like myself to get a quick start. The latest MX version points to a HOWTO at Sun for Tomcat setup. It is much easier to follow than the docs.
realkiwi
Comments from someone who used it found it a lifesaver.
I spent days (well hours... but felt like days) trying to figure out what Web Server connector (JK/JK2/WARP) to use to tie Tomcat to Apache, and why and how to get it all to work. This book saved me a lot of effort- I did go over the Tomcat user docs, but they were not very helpful.
Actually somebody did plagariaze my comments off of Amazon.com. I am not very happy about it, but I doubt I have any real recourse :,>.
:,()). Even
though I received this book by mistake
I found this book incredibly useful because
it provided an easy to use reference manual
that I could recommend to my students for
purchase.
:,()). I stand by my review on Amazon.
A couple of things though:
1. I do teach Java programming at a large technical college (Waukesha County Technical College, largest in the state of Wisconsin). I teach an intermediate Java programming class that has a heavy emphasis on servlet and JSP programming.
2. I do think the book is well-written and here is why. Many of the people on Slashdot are usually well-rounded developers whose abilities and experience are often greater then the average developer. Tomcat does have excellent documentation, but many people do not translate what they see in a a browser as well as what they read in a book. I think the Apache Tomcat book provides a great introduction to Tomcat as well being a useful reference manual. I have prepared material in my class based off of this book and have found it easy to follow and useful.
3. A note of disclosure: I have written for Wrox in the past (4 books) and done some technical reviewing work for Wrox. I have NEVER participated in any kind of technical reviewing for the Apache Tomcat book. Wrox sent me a copy of the book by mistake (I was suppose to be getting a couple of copies of my own book
Wrox has never asked me to "shill" for this book (or any other book) on Slashdot or Amazon.
I made my review on Amazon because I liked the book and I think that it is worth picking up.
I am posting here today because a colleague of mine sent me email telling me someone plagiarized my review on this site. The review posted here is pretty much my words (except for the hippy part
Sincerely,
John Carnell
Wrox Press has done a great job
Although Wrox has some good books, their best IMHO being Michael Kay's XSLT book, they are well know (at least around these parts) for egregious spelling, factual, and gramatical errors/mistakes.
My general strategy is that if OReilly or Addison Wesley offer a book, buy that. Only If their text is not available and if the Wrox text is on sale will I think about purchasing the Wrox version.
It's simply too verbose for me.
The problems developers face these days regarding configuration files... I was also against using XML for something like config files (I come from a world of crontab and smb.conf), but eversince I started using Tomcat alot with their XML config files I started figuring out why they use it.
Basically, XML allows alot of verbosity in the XML file, and XML parsers are a dime a dozen (or less), and when I code some silly thing I want it to be highly configurable and I don't want to code Yet Another Config Parser.
XML allows alot of structure to be easily realized in a human-readable format that is easy to parse.
I hope the you was being sarcastic, have you ever tried to make an apache 2.0 webserver talk to tomcat 4.1.x? I've spent too much time at it allready and it still isn't the way I'd like it. The documentation for this is woefully inadequate to boot, so there is NO help.
I tried to compile mod_webapp but it's just plain broken... My biggest complaint about the documentation and tomcat in general is that there are too many connectors that dont do the job quite right, or if they do they dont tell you how (cant compile mod_webapp, which is supposed to be better than the jk modules, which breaks some of my mod_rewrite rules).
I just want tomcat to serve my jsp pages and apache to serve the rest.
My French Bananas Of Unbounded Magnificence
/enfin/.
When teaching Granny to suck eggs
The dusky maiden softly begs
The husky crone to lift a hand
And helps the wrinkled hag to stand
Where moth and mildew cannot reach
Ties her in place, and starts to teach
With many cries of "Stand up straight!"
"Now put it in your mouth, like so -
And must I tell you: suck, don't blow!"
But Granny blew and eggy mess
Besmirched the helpful maiden's dress
Who then delivered such a slap
That Gran responded "Shut your trap!"
And tried to slap the maiden back
Her aged joints went crick and crack
The ropes held tight; the maiden smiled,
The crone could only curse the child;
The evil girl now took her switch
But luckily, a sudden glitch
Occurred to stop her beating Gran
She beat the egg instead,
from A Golden Treasury of Collaborative Verse
after I paid AUS$110 for a book titled something like 'Professional Microsoft Transaction Server'. It was the worst book I ever paid money for. I had a look at their other books and realised how they cheat. Since then I stick to Adison Wesley and O'Reilly mostly.