Back in 1995 when Java suddenly became the hottest thing, I jumped into it like everyone else. However, after reading two Java books and taking a weekend Java workshop, I was able to produce nothing but a couple of useless applets too bulky to use in any serious web project. I knew that Java was useful but it seemed that you had to be writing multi-tier ecommerce applications before you could get any use out of it. In the meantime, straight HTML, JavaScript and Microsoft’s wonderfully useful Active Server Pages enabled me to produce the interactive, database driven web sites I was looking for.
Then suddenly last week, I discovered JavaServer Pages.
Much like ASP, JavaServer Pages allows you to intersperse HTML with server script to create dynamically generated HTML code. JDBC allows a database connection and there you have it. JSP also has important advantages over ASP, the largest being that it runs on both Microsoft and non-Microsoft servers. Apparently it is also faster.
But the most exciting thing about JSP for me is that it allows me to finally put my theoretical knowledge of Java to use, and hence, get a foot into the Java programming world. When you get to know JSP a bit, you understand that what it actually does is dynamically create Java Servlets, which have been around for years and are basically improved cgi scripts written in Java. The Wrox book Professional JSP shows side-by-side examples of how JSP is converted into Servlets and how they interact with both client-side and server-side JavaBeans . This allows me to see the inner workings of Java in a way that shows important Java concepts based on useful examples which I can immediately employ. In other words, the road to becoming a Java programmer is now open and it looks something like this: JavaScript knowledge > JSP > Java Servlets > JavaBeans > Java application programming. Finding out about JSP was like seeing a crack of light in a dark tunnel.
JSP’s development environment was surprisingly easy to get up and running on my Windows 98 machine. A helpful message in a newsgroup tipped me off to Allaire’s development tool called JRun 3.0, which I downloaded along with Sun’s JDK. Ten minutes of installing and clicking yes yes yes and voila, JSP scripts are now running in my browser.
As JSP becomes more popular and supported by ISPs, I think it will serve more and more as a useful bridge for web developers who have always wanted to get into Java programming but never knew where to start.
7/17 The script/component model
7/23 Web development with a video camera
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