I got the point of the non-JSP alternatives being available and perhaps
overlooked. I also got the one that JSP shouldn't be seen as the logical
replacement for servlets. But I didn't like some of the red herring and
straw man arguments used to try to bolster the points, for example:
1. When a standard taglib becomes part of the 1.2 spec., most or all of the
arguments about the complexity and ugliness of JSP will be invalidated. Web
developers will be able to use the standard tag set, plus vendor-supplied,
domain-specific custom libs. It's short-sighted to rely on an argument to
the contrary. A custom taglib will be done or near done (I am betting)
before most vendors get the final release of their JSP 1.1 implementations
out the door. The argument is totally contingent on time, and not very much
time.
2. The memory argument was a particularly memorable straw man. Who cares if
every JSP page in a development environmnet takes up 30k for source (a
pretty darn hefty JSP page, BTW), plus some more KBs for a class file? Have
you priced disk space lately? Totally irrelevant, even with 100s of
thousands of JSP pages on one machine!
Another note: EJB. Sun and lots of other companies are stoked about EJB. I
think they see them as essentially RMI-based servlets that automagically
handle transactions, security, safely synchronized concurrency, and lots of
other features. With servlets, programmers still have to handle all that
crap. Naturally, Sun wondered what to say about servlets and JSP in the
J2EE Dev. Guide because they're seeing that EJBs are the better, more
scalable solution for businees logic and data persistence in enterprise
applications. So servlets are relegated to smaller apps, and CGI-like
functionality, and JSPs are quickly turning into a Java-based HTML with
magic (to the web developer) tags (much like CFML, if anyone's noticed).
Personally, I like JSP because it's so easy to prototype CGI-like servlets
with it.
Scott Stirling
Allaire
-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Hunter
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 1/26/00 2:01 PM
Subject: [JSP-INTEREST] New article: Conclusion
OK, I'm done with this thread, at least for today. I have to get back
to real work!
Hopefully I've accomplished what I set out to do: Make people realize
that there are alternatives to JSP, and make people think about why
they're choosing JSP.
It appears not many people on this list have tried the alternatives.
Perhaps you should. Pure Java templates have some nice advantages,
and work everywhere. Do a side-by-side comparison with JSP. See what
works best for you.
But whether or not you do that, just be aware that JSP is not the
natural evolution of servlets. It's not true when Sun's APM document
says, "JSP technology should be viewed as the norm while the use of
servlets will most likely be the exception." JSP is one useful
technology built on top of servlets, but there are others that are
(arguably) superior.
-jh-
===========================================================================
To unsubscribe: mailto [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body: "signoff JSP-INTEREST".
FAQs on JSP can be found at:
http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/faq.html
http://www.esperanto.org.nz/jsp/jspfaq.html
