Here is my take on the JSP used for XML "apart from HTML" debate.
The primary purpose of JSP is to deliver HTML content, period.
Why do I feel confident in saying that? Because it is a dynamic
extension of HTTP-Servlets. Servlets come in two varieties, the
generic servlet (which is what I believe true XML servers should
be extended from), and the HTTP servlet.
HTTP is the 'connection-less' (more correctly stateless) based
communication protocol that is the standard for Web Browsers to
request HTML content. It is built into the protocol. A client
expects to make a GET or PUT or POST type request (among others)
and to receive an HTTP result that is formatted with content in
the HTML specification standard.
It is certainly possible to extend httpd servers and provide
features that are 'non-standard', and that are possibly even
quite usefull, but they would not be the norm, and very few
clients would understand their output or how to deal with the
extensions.
JSP is designed to get it's parameters from HTTP header items,
and to formulate a response that will be wrapped in HTTP header
information (such as cookies, server-type, etc.) which will be
provided to some extent automatically by the HTTP Servlet that
the JSP compiler is prepared to extend.
Is it possible to extend the JSP model to provide other types
of content and to extend other Servlet models? Of course, but
nobody I am aware of is making such a proposal at this juncture.
Would that be an economical new pattern for development projects?
I will leave that up to others to debate.
-----Original Message-----
From: A mailing list about Java Server Pages specification and reference
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Costin Manolache
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 5:03 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: JSP vs XML
> I'm more than aware that there is a lot of HTML to be generated for the
next
> few years and that JSP will be a good direct way of doing it. However,
when
> I can use XML - because my intranet is entirely IE6, or it is for machine
> reading - does JSP provide me with any significant advantages?
Sure - for example if you have a static XML and want to add dynamic content.
For example - assume you have a docbook XML, and want to include an "serial
nr".
JSP may be an alternative to XSL - for many applications it is much easier
to
use JSP,
especialy for a non-tech person. ( with an XML editor and a XML-compatible
version
of JSP it will be even easier ).
> My feeling is that ASP and JSP will last only as long as it is necessary
to
> generate HTML directly - which may be a long time :( - once it is more
> structured kinds of data we are generating, they become unnecessary.
I think JSP will have to migrate to a XML form, and it will compete with
XSL.
XSL is more powerfull ( it can change the structure of the document), but
JSP is
easier to use. ( and as a consequence, it is easy to translate JSP to
executable code -
servlet or something else, while most XSL implementations are just
"interpretors".)
Costin
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