Presentation needs work

The book is rich in content and you can definitely learn a lot about JSF. Unfortunately, a good author also needs to be a good teacher and story teller. Reading Bergsten is like listening to Ben Stein or Stephen Hawking talk, you will undoubtedly wish you were doing anything else except this. Things such as changing a diaper or jury duty will become more appealing after reading this book. I stopped once during reading and decided to clean my room instead. That's exactly how exciting it was to read Bergsten.

To give a contrary example, Kevin Yank from sitepoint or Joe Burns from HTMLGoodies are infinitely more fluid and entertaining to read. If you want a book for its content, this is a good book. If you have a crappy attention span like myself, this is a difficult book to read. To give a bit of background on myself (not that anybody cares) I've been a Java programmer for about 6 years so the book isn't above me, its just too dry in my opinion. That's my two cents. Good Luck and Happy Shopping!

Other Reviews

• Presentation needs work
• OK Starting Point
• For a J2EE beginner, a great resource
• A decent survey of JSF