JSP Tutorials - Writing First JSP

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Java Server Pages or JSP for short is Sun's solution for developing dynamic web sites. JSP provide excellent server side scripting support for creating database driven web applications. JSP enable the developers to directly insert java code into jsp file, this makes the development process very simple and its maintenance also becomes very easy. JSP pages are efficient, it loads into the web servers memory on receiving the request very first time and the subsequent calls are served within a very short period of time.
In today's environment most web sites servers dynamic pages based on user request. Database is very convenient way to store the data of users and other things. JDBC provide excellent database connectivity in heterogeneous database environment. Using JSP and JDBC its very easy to develop database driven web application.


Installing JSP
First of all download JavaServer Web Development Kit (JSWDK1.0.1) from http://java.sunproducts/servlet/download.html. JSWDK comes with full documentation and it's very easy to install, so the installation process is not mentioned here. The JSWDK is the official reference implementation of the servlet 2.1 and JSP 1.0 specifications. It is used as a small stand-alone server for testing servlets and JSP pages before they are deployed to a full Web server that supports these technologies. It is free and reliable, but takes quite a bit of effort to install and configure.



JavaServer Pages
JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology is the Java platform technology for delivering dynamic content to web clients in a portable, secure and well-defined way. The JavaServer Pages specification extends the Java Servlet API to provide web application developers with a robust framework for creating dynamic web content on the server using HTML, and XML templates, and Java code, which is secure, fast, and independent of server platforms. JSP has been built on top of the Servlet API and utilizes Servlet semantics. JSP has become the preferred request handler and response mechanism. Although JSP technology is going to be a powerful successor to basic Servlets, they have an evolutionary relationship and can be used in a cooperative and complementary manner.
Servlets are powerful and sometimes they are a bit cumbersome when it comes to generating complex HTML. Most servlets contain a little code that handles application logic and a lot more code that handles output formatting. This can make it difficult to separate and reuse portions of the code when a different output format is needed. For these reasons, web application developers turn towards JSP as their preferred servlet environment.
Evolution of Web Applications
Over the last few years, web server applications have evolved from static to dynamic applications. This evolution became necessary due to some deficiencies in earlier web site design. For example, to put more of business processes on the web, whether in business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) markets, conventional web site design technologies are not enough. The main issues, every developer faces when developing web applications, are:
1. Scalability - a successful site will have more users and as the number of users is increasing fastly, the web applications have to scale correspondingly.