JSTL: JSP Standard Tag Library Kick Start

Introduction

JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL) is one of the most significant additions to JSP since the introduction of JSP itself. JSP has traditionally been programmed using scriptlet code—Java source code that is inserted along with the HTML that normally makes up a Web page. JSTL seeks to use tags—similar to those that make up HTML—to replace JSP scriptlet programming. The purpose of this book is to teach you to use JSTL.

First, we must determine exactly what JSTL is. JSTL is a tag library and, as such, is programmed using tags. These tags are similar to the tags you use to program HTML—which is one of the key advantages of JSTL. This similarity is intended is to help alleviate the sharp contrast between the HTML intermingled with ...