JSP Tutorial

Java Server Pages (JSP) is a server-side programming technology that enables the creation of dynamic, platform-independent method for building Web-based applications. JSP have access to the entire family of Java APIs, including the JDBC API to access enterprise databases. This tutorial will teach you how to use Java Server Pages to develop your web applications in simple and easy steps.

Why to Learn JSP?

JavaServer Pages often serve the same purpose as programs implemented using the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). But JSP offers several advantages in comparison with the CGI.

• Performance is significantly better because JSP allows embedding Dynamic Elements in HTML Pages itself instead of having separate CGI files.

• JSP are always compiled before they are processed by the server unlike CGI/Perl which requires the server to load an interpreter and the target script each time the page is requested.

• JavaServer Pages are built on top of the Java Servlets API, so like Servlets, JSP also has access to all the powerful Enterprise Java APIs, including JDBC, JNDI, EJB, JAXP, etc.

• JSP pages can be used in combination with servlets that handle the business logic, the model supported by Java servlet template engines.

Finally, JSP is an integral part of Java EE, a complete platform for enterprise class applications. This means that JSP can play a part in the simplest applications to the most complex and demanding.

Applications of JSP

As mentioned before, JSP is one of the most widely used language over the web. I'm going to list few of them here:

JSP vs. Active Server Pages (ASP)

The advantages of JSP are twofold. First, the dynamic part is written in Java, not Visual Basic or other MS specific language, so it is more powerful and easier to use. Second, it is portable to other operating systems and non-Microsoft Web servers.

JSP vs. Pure Servlets

It is more convenient to write (and to modify!) regular HTML than to have plenty of println statements that generate the HTML.

JSP vs. Server-Side Includes (SSI)

SSI is really only intended for simple inclusions, not for "real" programs that use form data, make database connections, and the like.

JSP vs. JavaScript

JavaScript can generate HTML dynamically on the client but can hardly interact with the web server to perform complex tasks like database access and image processing etc.

JSP vs. Static HTML

Regular HTML, of course, cannot contain dynamic information.

Audience

This tutorial has been prepared for the beginners to help them understand basic functionality of Java Server Pages (JSP) to develop your web applications. After completing this tutorial you will find yourself at a moderate level of expertise in using JSP from where you can take yourself to next levels.

Prerequisites

We assume you have little knowledge of how web applications work over HTTP, what is web server and what is web browsers. It will be great if you have some knowledge of web application development using any programming language.