From the Preface to
Advanced Java Server Pages

Shortly after the Swing volume of Graphic Java was published in March 1999, I became aware of the mass exodus from client-side Java to server-side Java. Because I make a living writing books, I took that exodus very seriously, so I began exploring server-side Java in search of a technology that would be appropriate for my next book. At first, I was enamored with XML, XSLT, and Java, and I spent a good deal of time experimenting with those technologies. But as exciting as those technologies are, it seemed to me that they were on the periphery of developing web applications, and I wanted something that was directly involved in the creation of web applications. Then I discovered servlets.

To be honest, I wasn't too excited about servlets. Were software developers really going to create user interfaces by generating HTML with print statements from the guts of some servlet? I knew of at least one software developer that was not. Since 1984, I've had the good fortune to develop software by using a number of object-oriented languages and very cool user interface toolkits. I've developed applications in Smalltalk, Eiffel, and NeXTSTEP, and it seemed to me that developing applications with HTML—especially HTML manually generated from servlets—was akin to trading in a Ferrari for a Yugo. Then I discovered JSP.

Although back in 1999 JSP was in its infancy, it was easy to see its potential. Here was a way to mix Java with HTML, which opened the door to all kinds of interesting possibilities. And in the Future Directions section of the JSP 1.0 specification, I saw something that really caught my eye: A portable tag extension mechanism is being considered for the JSP 1.1 specification. This mechanism permits the description of tags that can be used from any JSP page. Wow. With custom tags you could encapsulate Java code, which would essentially allow you to create custom components, in the form of tags, that could be used in conjunction with HTML. From then on, I knew that my next book would be about JSP.

So I started to write an introductory JSP book, and I actually wrote the first chapter of that book before I realized two things. First, there was going to be a glut of introductory JSP books, and I did not want to compete against all of those books. Second, and most important, that first chapter was boring, and I hate to read boring books, let alone write them. So, I decided to write this book instead.