JavaServer Pages (JSP) is a technology based on the Java language and enables the development of dynamic web sites. JSP was developed by Sun Microsystems to allow server side development. JSP files are HTML files with special Tagscontaining Java source code that provide the dynamic content.

JSP source code runs on the web server in the JSP Servlet Engine. The JSP Servlet engine dynamically generates the HTML and sends the HTML output to the client’s web browser.

JSP is based on Java, an objectoriented language. JSP offers a robust platform for web development. JSP code on the server is classed as the implementation. By having a separation of presentation and implementation, designers work only on the presentation and developers concentrate on implementing the application.

JSPs are built on top of SUN’s servlet technology. JSPs are essential an HTML page with special JSP tags embedded. These JSP tags can contain Java code. The JSP file extension is .jsp rather than .htm or .html. The JSP engine parses the .jsp and creates a Java servlet source file. It then compiles the source file into a class file, this is done the first time and this why the JSP is probably slower the first time it is accessed. Any time after this the special compiled servlet is executed and is therefore returns faster.