Java Server Pages FAQ
---------------------
(tm owned by Sun?)
Maintainer: Richard Vowles, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (www.esperanto.org.nz)
Table of Contents
-----------------
1) What is JSP?
2) What version is the current version of JSP?
3) Where can I get the specification for JSP?
4) Who supports JSP?
5) What books are available for JSP?
6) Is JSP better than ASP (Microsoft's Active Server Pages)?
7) What HTML editors support JSP?
Other topics + descriptions & additions gladly accepted.
FAQ Contents
------------
1) What is JSP?
JSP is a dynamic scripting capability for web pages that allows Java as
well as a few
special tags to be embedded into a web file (HTML/XML, etc). The suffix
traditionally ends
with .jsp to indicate to the web server that the file is a JSP file.
JSP files actually get compiled into Servlets, so what is the point? Why
not just write
Servlets?
For most people, the benefit is twofold:
- the focus is on HTML. Java and the JSP extensions assist in making
the HTML more
functional. Servlets on the other hand allow outputting of HTML but
it is a tedious
process.
- it is easy to make a change and then let the JSP capability of the
Web Server you are
using deal with compiling it into a Servlet and running it.
2) What version is the current version of JSP?
0.92 is the current version of JSP and has been for some time. Sun are
really, really,
really slow at bringing out the 1.0 spec for JSP and this is causing a
lot of flak as many
believe that they are trying to add too much functionality.
0.91 is a popular version though, and much software that supports the
JSP pre-standard
actually supports 0.91 of JSP.
3) Where can I get the specification for JSP?
The specification for JSP comes as part of the reference implementation
for JSP. The JSP
home page from Sun is located at http://java.sun.com/products/jsp.
4) Who supports JSP?
There are the following implementations available:
(Name of Product, Version supported, where to get it from, cost?)
- JSP Reference Implementation, 0.92, http://java.sun.com/products/jsp,
free
- GNUJSP, 0.91, http://www.xs4all.nl/~vincentp/gnujsp/, free
- PolyJsp, 0.92, http://www.plenix.org/polyjsp, free + open source
- WebSphere Application Server, 0.91, http://www.ibm.com, ???
(lots of others???)
5) What books are available for JSP?
Most book vendors appear to be waiting for the 1.0 version of the
specification to be
released before committing to any books. This tends to give ammo to the
ASP camp who point
to the dearth of good books on JSP (this may in fact just be a
condemnation of ASP for
needing so many... :-)
That said, there was some momentum for a group of people to write a web
book on JSP - who
that/those people were I missed - can someone please email me details?
Is it still alive?
Can people contribute?
6) Is JSP better than ASP (Microsoft's Active Server Pages)?
This is a matter of great debate. Many punters think that JavaSoft has
the benefit of
hindsight - what works well and what does't. ASP is very complex but
supports multiple
scripting languages and the ActiveX model of Microsoft. Although ASP
_is_ available on many
platforms, the ActiveX library support that makes it as powerful as it
is is missing and
thus makes ActiveX only feasible for an NT platform.
According to recent statistics (see the RedHat site), 22% of web servers
are NT, (21% are
Linux), that means there is 78% needing something else, and JSP
advocates believe that JSP
fits the bill nicely that you very much.
7) What HTML editors support JSP?
Most of the visual developers do not support JSP in any way, shape or
form, they mess up the
tags totally. The following HTML editors have been known to work with
JSP:
- HomeSite (? where to get this from ?)
- Windows Notepad
- VI
--
Richard Vowles, Senior Systems Engineer,
Inprise New Zealand, MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
HTTP: The Esperanto Group, www.esperanto.org.nz
[my messages contain my own opinions, not those of my employer]
===========================================================================
To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body
of the message "signoff JSP-INTEREST". For general help, send email to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "help".
