Chapter 1. Introducing JavaServer Pages

The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) has taken the once-chaotic task of building an Internet presence and transformed it to the point where developers can use Java to efficiently create multitier, server-side applications. Today, the Java Enterprise APIs have expanded to encompass a number of areas: RMI and CORBA for remote object handling, JDBC for database interaction, JNDI for accessing naming and directory services, Enterprise JavaBeans for creating reusable business components, JMS (Java Messaging Service) for message-oriented middleware, JAXP for XML processing, and JTA (Java Transaction API) for performing atomic transactions. In addition, J2EE also supports servlets, an extremely popular Java substitute for CGI scripts. The combination of these technologies allows programmers to create distributed business solutions for a variety of tasks.

In late 1999, Sun Microsystems added a new element to the collection of Enterprise Java tools: JavaServer Pages (JSP). JavaServer Pages are built on top of Java servlets and are designed to increase the efficiency in which programmers, and even nonprogrammers, can create web content. This book is primarily about JavaServer Pages, covering the latest version of this technology, JSP 1.2, as well as the related JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL) Version 1.0. It also covers other J2EE technologies, such as servlets and JDBC, with focus on how to combine them with JSP in the most efficient way.