Java Servlet Programming

The Power of Servlets

So far, we have portrayed servlets as an alternative to other dynamic web content technologies, but we haven’t really explained why we think you should use them. What makes servlets a viable choice for web development? We believe that servlets offer a number of advantages over other approaches, including: portability, power, efficiency, endurance, safety, elegance, integration, extensibility, and flexibility. Let’s examine each in turn.

Portability

Because servlets are written in Java and conform to a well-defined and widely accepted API, they are highly portable across operating systems and across server implementations. You can develop a servlet on a Windows NT machine running the Java Web Server and later deploy it effortlessly on a high-end Unix server running Apache. With servlets, you can truly “write once, serve everywhere.”

Servlet portability is not the stumbling block it so often is with applets, for two reasons. First, servlet portability is not mandatory. Unlike applets, which have to be tested on all possible client platforms, servlets have to work only on the server machines that you are using for development and deployment. Unless you are in the business of selling your servlets, you don’t have to worry about complete portability. Second, servlets avoid the most error-prone and inconsistently implemented portion of the Java language: the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) that forms the basis of Java graphical user interfaces.

Power

Servlets can harness ...