JSP application frameworksWhat are application frameworks:A framework is a reusable, semi-complete application that can be specialized toproduce custom applications Johnson. Like people, software applications are more alike than they are differeThey run on the same computers, expect input from the same devices, output to the same displays, and save data to the same hard disks. Developers working on conventional desktop applications are accustomed to toolkits and development environments that leverage the sameness between applications. Application frameworks build on this common ground to provide developers with a reusable structure that can serve as the foundation for their own products.A framework provides developers with a set of backbone components that have the following characteristics:1 .They are known to work well in other applications;2. They are ready to use with the next project;3. They can also be used by other teams in the organization.Frameworks are the classic build-versus-buy proposition. If you build it, you will understand it when you are done一but how long will it be before you can roll your own? If you buy it, you will have to climb the learning curveand how long is that going to take? There is no right answer here, but most observers would agree that frameworks such as Struts provide a significant return on investment compared to starting from scratch, especially for larger projects.Other types of frameworks:The idea of a framework applies not only to applications but to application componentsas well. Throughout this article, we introduce other types of frameworks that you can use with Struts. These include the Lucene search engine, the Scaffold toolkit, the Struts validator, and the Tiles tag library. Like application frameworks, these tools provide semi-complete versions of a subsystem that can be specialized to provide a custom component.Some frameworks have been linked to a proprietary development environment. This is not the case with Struts or any of the other frameworks shown in this book. You can use any development environment with Struts: Visual Age for Java, JBuilder, Eclipse, Emacs, and Textpad are all popular choices among Struts developers. If you can use it with Java, you can use it with Struts.Enabling technologies:Applications developed with Struts are based on a number of enabling technologies.These components are not specific to Struts and underlie every Java web application. A reason that developers use frameworks like Struts is to hide the nasty details behind acronyms like HTTP, CGI, and JSP. As a Struts developer, you don，t need to be an alphabet soup guru, but a working knowledge of these base technologies can help you devise creative solutions to tricky problems.Java servlets:Surfs Java Servlet platform directly addresses the two main drawbacks of CGI programs.First, servlets offer better performance and utilization of resources than conventional CGI programs. Second, the write-once, run-anywhere nature of Java means that servlets are portable between operating systems that have a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).A servlet looks and feels like a miniature web server. It receives a request and renders a response. But, unlike conventional web servers, the servlet application programming interface (API) is specifically designed to help Java developers create dynamic applications.The servlet itself is simply a Java class that has been compiled into byte code, like any other Java object. The servlet has access to a rich API of HTTP-specific services, but it is still just another Java object running in an application and can leverage all your other Java assets.To give conventional web servers access to servlets, the servlets are plugged into containers. The servlet container is attached to the web server. Each servlet can declare what URL patterns it would like to handle. When a request matching a registered pattern arrives, the web server passes the request to the container, and the container invokes the servlet.But unlike CGI programs, a new servlet is not created for each request. Once the container instantiates the servlet, it will just create a new thread for each request. Java threads are much less expensive than the server processes used by CGI programs. Once the servlet has been created, using it for additional requests incurs very little overhead. Servlet developers can use the init() method to hold references to expensive resources, such as database connections or EJB Home Interfaces, so that they can be shared between requests.Acquiring resources like these can take several seconds一which is longer than many surfers are willing to wait.The other edge of the sword is that, since servlets are multithreaded, servlet developers must take special care to be sure their servlets are thread-safe. To learn more about servlet programming, we recommend Java Servlets by Example, by Alan R. Williamson Williamson. The definitive sour