The central point behind this type of books isn't so much to build an enterprise-grade production-ready thing, but rather to bridge the delta between zero and having a working thing of sufficiently large complexity, which inevitably exists for someone who had never been there before. Having that in mind, I think these books are very valuable.

much like swimming, it helps to start in the shallow end before you tread into deeper waters.

care to name a few such good oldies?