Summary

The JSTL is a helpful tool for a JSP developer; it provides a standard set of custom tags that extend the standard JSP actions to incorporate the most commonly needed custom tags. Additionally, the JSTL expression language is a powerful new feature available to custom tag authors.

The JSTL is most helpful because it defines a standard set of iteration tags and conditional tags and because it inspired the JSP EL. These features of the JSTL aid a JSP developer in rapidly creating JSP without requiring the use of scripting elements. The expression language is particularly helpful because it is designed specifically for JSP. Compared to embedding Java syntax in a regular expression, the JSP EL is much more convenient.