Expert Spring MVC and Web Flow [Paperback]

I started out giving this book 3 stars but then I realised that might be a little unfair, because the value of the book depends on where you are coming from, i.e. the bigger picture.

The book, as the title suggests, is about Spring MVC and Web Flow. Readers of the book should already know a bit about the Spring Framework in general. There are several references to another Apress book Pro Spring for those readers who don't already have the pre-requisite Spring knowledge. I've never read that book so I can't comment on it, instead I bought Professional Java Development with the Spring Framework by Johnson et al, which is definitely a 5 star book without question and I highly recommend it for anyone just starting out with Spring. So when I mentioned that it depends on where you're coming from, I mean it depends on whether you've read Johnson et al or not, and whether or not you've read Pro Spring.

If you've read Johnson et al ... then this is a 3 star book and you probably don't need it. If you've read Johnson et al then you already know plenty about the Spring Framework, including MVC. In which case, this book will only add a little bit of value. Their coverage of MVC is more detailed but in my opinion not so much so that it is worth buying the book if you're already building Spring MVC applications. If you're like me, you may be looking to buy this book because it covers Web Flow, which is something that Johnson et al has no coverage of. More about that later.

If you've read Pro Spring ... then this is a 4.5 star book. It is definitely a good read for someone who doesn't already know anything about Spring MVC. If you're looking for Web Flow though, well, more about that later.

If you haven't read either Johnson et al or Pro Spring ... I would recommend buying Johnson et al and not worrying about this book. But then you're still left without anything on Web Flow.

This book contains 2 chapters on Spring Web Flow. A technology that I think is going to be extremely useful and well worth learning if you're building web applications. The problem is that Web Flow has still not had an official 1.0 release yet. The Web Flow chapters were written by Colin Yates. If you've ever hung out on the Spring forums then you might know of him already. He is always there contributing really useful advice. He knows a lot about Spring and Web Flow but when writing these chapters the poor guy was trying to hit a moving target and some of it is out of date already. I also think he doesn't go into enough detail some of the time and you're left wondering how to fill in the gaps. For example, a flow is stored in a repository. There is no mention of what the default repository is or how to configure something other than the default. I had to find out by looking through Javadocs, which in itself wasn't so easy because the API in the latest release (RC1) has changed since the book was written. So my opinion on the Web Flow chapters is that they are good if you have no previous knowledge of Web Flow but they aren't sufficient on their own. You'll have to learn as you go by looking for online tutorials and reading through the API.

So all in all, a good book, definitely worth buying ... or not, depending on what you've read in the past.

Well written and presented, this book is a must buy for all Spring MVC developers. Having brought Spring in Action months earlier, which didnt impress me, this book covers all the areas which I wasn't clear on.

References are made to the Pro Spring book for details like implementing the MVC in the services layer - but even so this plug is done with grace and style.

Well worth the investment!

This is a good book about Spring MVC both for expert and newbie in programming and in this framework.
The prerequisites for understanding this book are:
-- Java OOP programming
-- XML
-- J2EE and Servlet

The book explain much more the necessary for writing Spring-MVC application. In particular I have never used web flow, and I use other libraries for AJAX, however is better to have them explained than not. A very good technical book.