Rating:  - Good JSF reference with some room for improvement
Yes, this book will answer most of beginners' questions about how JSF works. No, after it answers them you'll still be looking for answers why.
Yes, if you need to know *how* to program JSF then book's long examples will benefit you. No, if you want to understand *why* things are done that way then a lot of pages could be skipped.
This book is much closer to being specification than it needs to be, but beginner will get good understanding of JSF foundation topics. So for every 'yes' - it's good, there is almost always 'no' - it was not enough.
Rating:  - good introductory text for JSF
It's an excellent introduction text to JSF. I like the examples which you can try and learn from the coding experience. It however, is a bit weak on theory, like for instance lifecycles details etc. which isn't a big deficit considering that can be looked up easily. However, I do think a bit more theory in the first couple of chapter would make this book a stronger offering. As for rest of the chapters, the examples are clear and well suited for learning the material and the author's logic/explanations clear and succinct. The chapters are arranged logically, which means by following its order it build you knowledge up nicely. You probably should pickup a book that explains the h: f: tags in more details after this. But this book has the skeletons of everything which wets your appetite for digging deeper into JSF. Overall, a very good introduction.
Rating: - Good book, but not much different from 1st edition
I got the first and second edition of this book. From the first to the second the book does not get better in knowledge even though Java Server Faces for Java 5 EE gets a lot of powerful components. They are not covered. I was expecting a more deep explanation of how to get the best from Java Server Faces to build Web Applications. For first time purchasers this is a "must have book", but do not expect too much if you have the first edition.
Rating:  - The best but...
Hi, this is the best book you can get.
But I hope in their future version:
1. There should be a new chapter called Managed Bean Environment or something like that. One managed bean cannot do much if it knows nothing about its environment. How to access other managed beans in scopes. How to access objects in scopes. How to access the parameters in the environment. We need to know how several managed beans communicate each other and communicate with their environment to complish a real project. We also need you to provide a concret example like in J2EE5 tutorial bookstore6. I am so pity you missing this crucial part.
2. There should be a new chapter called JSF and Enterprise Bean. This is an important issue to put JSF into a meaningful environment. JSF is for J2EE application. Managed bean need to link to session bean and session bean link to JPA. We need a such example how it works.
3. The chapter 8 to chapter 12 do not realy need to know for CORE JSF and therefore should be dropped to give book space for the above content.
4. In the chapter 5 Data Tables : Editing Table Cells. It is very inconvinient to click a checkbox to active editing mode. I suggest to remove all checkbox because in practise people will edit seveal cell content and click a save button. Also you do not need one inputText and one outputText for one cell. Remove outputText and add readonly in the inputText. Can you tell how to freez header when scroll a table?
5. There should be a chapter to talk about JSTL. It seems my request is out of the topic but it is not. JSTL is hard to stand out for an independent book. It will live with JSF. In real project, JSF is always mixed with JSTL to make a web page. We need to know when and how to use JSTL in a JSF page. I would say, the technique you learned from this book is not enough fro you to make a real web page.
Regards
Rating: - A solid 'must have' reference for any serious library catering to Java programmers.
Java programmers will find essential this second updated edition CORE JAVASERVER FACES, which examines all elements of JSF 1.2 development and offers up a set of 'best practices' for automating functions, building consistent reusable user interfaces, and tweaking Java with JBoss Seam and custom components. There have been extensive updates and modifications to this edition, making it a solid 'must have' reference for any serious library catering to Java programmers.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
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