JSTL Basics

[Macky Shannon]

I have just started looking into using taglibs. Is JSTL built-in? Or, are there imports / jar files that need to be set up?
I looked at a couple sample Struts applications and it seems a bit complex for what I am doing. I would like to move some scriptlets out of JSP though.
What is the learning curve of JSTL vs Struts? Any comments.
Macky

[Jason Menard]

Comparing Struts to JSTL is imho comparing apples to oranges. Struts is a MVC framework to use in building web based apps, whereas the JSTL simply encapsulates some functionality common to most JSP apps. Used together, you would build your application in a Struts framework, and use JSTL to assist with view logic in your JSPs. Struts also has its own set of taglibs, some of which duplicate functionality found in the JSTL. Here's a pretty good article to help get you started in JSTL.
But to answer your question more directly, since JSTL is only a set of taglibs, there is imho less of a learning curve than there is with Struts (although as I stated the two really shouldn't be compared).

[Shawn Bayern]

I agree. To add to that, JSTL is analogous not to Struts but to Struts's custom tag libraries. The long-term plan for Struts is for it to simply adopt JSTL's tags and deprecate its custom tags; this meshes nicely with Struts's trend toward focusing on controller operation and not on the details of the view.

[harold neiper]

We are currently in the process of implementing JSTL for use with all of our web applications that need to be localized.
So far this implementation is working very nicely. The setup is very straight forward just follow the instructions on where to place the taglibs and jars. The learning curve for this portion was negligible.
The only difficulty so far is understanding the differences between the EL and RT based languages and which is best suited for your given circumstances. But as far as the learning curve for JSTL in comparison to Struts(knowing this is not a fair comparison) well, JSTL is by far a smaller.
[ April 22, 2003: Message edited by: harold neiper ]