Web Development with JavaServer Pages

Web Development with JavaServer Pages is truly an excellent and in-depth tutorial in the effective use of JSPs to build Web applications. Geared toward the Web designer or intermediate Java programmer who's making a transition to JSPs for the first time, this text contains a wealth of information on basic and advanced techniques. This tutorial is as good as any that's available, and covers all of the necessary JSP directives and syntax. For each directive, possible attributes are listed in convenient tables, which makes this also a worthwhile reference to everyday JSP development that explores the nooks and crannies of JSP APIs, and how pages are built (and cached) on today's JSP platforms. Web Development with JavaServer Pages also does a good job of showing how to design JavaBean components and integrate them into your JSPs through tags. (Ideally, beans should do the calculation and "thinking" on the middle tier, while JSPs work on the front end.) You'll learn the right way to proceed with JSPs and beans--reinforced via a number of effective code samples. A larger example, a Web database of frequently asked questions (FAQs), demonstrates the big picture with JSPs and beans. Final chapters turn toward a useful aspect of JSP, custom tags, which allow Java programmers to extend the set of available tags for JSP front-end designers. There's even a sample of interactive tags, in which tags work together with other tags, with sample code. Filled with plenty of details that carry the reader well beyond the basics, this text is one of the better available tutorials for learning JSPs. Its no-nonsense presentation style and useful examples can help put JSP development into the hands of anyone who has some prior HTML or Java experience. --Richard Dragan