The proposed final draft 2 of the JSP 2.0 specification has been posted with over 70 clarifications and minor changes over the first draft. JSP 2.0 brings much needed enhancements including an expression language, simpler ways to write custom tags, JSP fragments, dynamic attributes, strong XML support, and better configurability.

Check out JSP 2.0 PFD 2 and its JSR.

I had the chance to attend a BOF at ApacheCon 2002 given by one of the spec leads. I've never liked JSP but after that presentation, I was impressed. Favorite parts: expression language and JSP fragments.

JSP 2.0 is what JSP should have been like from the start. Unfortunately, many developers have been scared off JSP, which is a shame.

yes, it's a good stuff,

but what java developers really need is an IDE, with graphical designers for building WEB based UI.

BTW I have read that JDeveloper team is working on that.
Let's hope it will not be for BC4J only.

we have a lot of specs... so many of them.

For instance, I cannot say that Tomcat is without bugs.

I was badly surprised about latest Tomcat release
when I found that global Data Sources doesnt work as expected.

not everyone can afford WEBLogic...

I use Tomcat as well and their DataSource implementation didn't exactly do what I wanted either. However it is very easy to just take the underlying Jakarta Commons DBCP and use it in the way you want to. Solved my problems.

<quote>
not everyone can afford WEBLogic...
</quote>


Take a look at resin or orion, they're pretty cheap and are of very high quality

Also, try JRun 4. The new version is pretty stable and fast.

Michael

I fully agree, a good IDE is very important. Take a look at ASP.NET which is a poor implementation from a webdesigner point of view, but from a webdeveloper point of view, I haven't seen anything like it in the java world.

Jan

We actually have at least one good IDE (Eclipse). The key problem is that you have to put all the pieces together. Setting the entire EJB/JSP/Web Services/IDE/IDE plugin/etc environment can be a real pain and can really intimidate the new user.

What would be great is if someone put everything together. When I was learning PHP, the PHPDEV4 library was priceless:
. http://www.firepages.com.au/phpdev4.htm
It had PHP, Apache, MySQL, PERL, MySQL Front, and phpMyAdmin already set up for me so I could focus on the learning. Yes it's easy to install all these things, but it's also easy to make mistakes, and when you do, things don't work the way you expect them. When you're learning, you're not sure if the problem is in your code or in the install.

Back when I was learning EJBs, I ran into this exact problem. I got a "class not found" exception. It took me a lot of time and frustration to figure out that it wasn't my code or deployment descriptor. It was a JBoss installation error.

If someone with the time and experience would set up the PHPDEV4-equivalent of a good EJB/JSP/Web Services/IDE/plugin/Java environment on sourceforge, I'd be happy to contribute.

Eclipse for me is more than enough, in fact i don't need another IDE beside Eclipse. I would rather make plugins for Eclipse that suitable for my works rather than looking for another java IDE.

For task simplicity, IMHO Ant has done all the java task very smooth and elegant. Ant picked as top #1 Java tools is not just a big words.

What do you guys think are the biggest advantages of a JSP based presentation tier versus a rich web-based client (e.g. a Flash-based one)?

> advantages of a JSP based presentation
> tier versus a rich web-based client
> (e.g. a Flash-based one)?

What do you mean when you say 'JSP based presentation tier'? If you mean HTML, XHTML, WML or other markup based vocabularies, then the biggest advantages over Flash-based approach are:

- Open standards
- Broad support
- Ligthweight
- Does not depend on proprietary technology
- Works fine with other standards
- Text editor is all that is needed
- Safe and secure

You're rite... JSP has extra capabilities than Flash. But that on developer point of view.

From user point of view, they'll prefer a nice beauty front-end which take a lot of effort to do with JSP. And no other JSP tools capable to do that in simplify way.

Cheers