What we expect from a Web site has changed dramatically over the last few years. In the early days of the Web, just finding a site with useful information was a thrill. Today we expect Web sites to be highly dynamic with advanced search capabilities, personalization, online ordering, and accurate shipment tracking functions — all accessible through an easy-to-use, visually appealing user interface. Developing this type of site requires the cooperation of many people with different skills. Perhaps the largest challenge is keeping the request-processing code and HTML markup separate so they can be worked on independently. JavaServer Pages (JSP) is a popular technology that can be used to accomplish this.
What we expect from a Web site has changed dramatically over the last few years. In the early days of the Web, just finding a site with useful information was a thrill. Today we expect Web sites to be highly dynamic with advanced search capabilities, personalization, online ordering, and accurate shipment tracking functions — all accessible through an easy-to-use, visually appealing user interface. Developing this type of site requires the cooperation of many people with different skills. Perhaps the largest challenge is keeping the request-processing code and HTML markup separate so they can be worked on independently. JavaServer Pages (JSP) is a popular technology that can be used to accomplish this.
Why JSP?
Java has proven itself as a great language and platform for server-side applications. Java servlets first appeared in 1997 and have been embraced by all major Web servers as the alternative to Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts. As described in last month’s column (available online at http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-04/java_01.html), servlets are applications created by extending certain Java classes. They are managed by a Web container that provides the runtime environment and access to other resources. The container runs in a permanent process, giving servlets a performance advantage over CGI scripts, which can require a new process to be created for each request.
But there’s a problem with servlets: besides the request-processing code, a servlet also includes statements to emit the HTML elements for the response. This makes it virtually impossible for a Web…
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