Reviewed by Balaji Loganathan, September 2004
(9 of 10)
This is best book to sit and read near by a fire but additionally you need a computer with you from time to time. I was very much pleased with the way author had described the interior design of Tomcat with reference to Catalina from a very simple component to the complex one. This book will sure help you to learn the big picture of Tomcat and its components and will also help you to run sample application servers.
It is highly recommended to download the code and use them as reference while reading and testing the chapters. This book covers both Tomcat 4 and 5 with a tiny note what has been changed from Tomcat 4 to 5.
I also liked the UML diagram and the collaboration diagram at the beginning of each/some chapters, this gives you the big picture of the package/class structure before you get into the very detail of every java class
After reading this book, if you happen to see some runtime errors from Tomcat, you will sure be able to say where and why it is happening
The book also act as a best documentation for entire Tomcat package, which you will not get even if you spend days on Tomcat website.
I would also recommend this book to any java programmer who want to see how a complex tool like Tomcat was build, which in-turn can help you to apply that knowledge while building your own in-house software.
(9 of 10)
