Further thoughts:
Originally posted by Michael Finney:
1) Do most people write "normal" jsp syntax or are they writing xhtml / jsp syntax? (how will we ever really know for sure?)
It's hard to know what "most people" are doing (and not that what "most people" do is the best way), but the majority of experienced developers that I know write "normal" JSP syntax with xhtml template text.
Remember that within a JSP, everything that's not a directive or action is simply template text. The JSP engine could care less if it's HTML, XHTML, or the results of your iguana walking across your keyboard.
2) if one is reading a book which favors xhtml and wants the html equivalent of what is being presented, where can one go to look up the html equivalent?
xhtml is correctly interpreted even if the doctype is set to html. So why the need for any conversion?