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A Web Developers Perspective -

"from ASP to JSP"

An Overview of the Technology

Comparing these two technologies is both a difficult and sensitive task but it is important to appreciate the differences in the way that the various interfaces, and the applications that connect to them, work.

JavaServer Pages (JSP) and Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technologies provide a simplified, fast way to create web pages that display dynamically generated content. While ASP and JSP technologies are similar in many ways, they also differ significantly in some ways.

Both the technologies follow the same model of separating programming logic from page design through the use of components that are called from the page itself. And both provide developers an easier and faster alternative to creating web applications using CGI scripts.

The biggest difference between JSP and ASP technologies lies in the approach to the software design. ASP is based on ISAPI whereas JSP is implemented as a part of J2EE.

ASP consists of a single DLL (asp.dll) which generates dynamic content when an ASP page with server-side script combined with HTML is parsed through it. Similarly, the JSP-enabled engine on the web server will process the JSP page, which may include technology-specific tags, declarations, and possibly Scriptlets in JAVA, along with HTML or XML tags.

Portability

A Portable application environment gives organizations the flexibility to migrate servers and swap tools, as business needs change. Portability also enables developers to share their work with a wider audience.

Java Server Pages technology delivers "Write Once, Run Anywhere" capability, offering unprecedented reuse on any platform and on any server.

JSP is being developed through an industry-wide initiative led by Sun Microsystems and is designed to be both platform and server independent. In contrast, ASP is purely a Microsoft based technology deployed primarily on Windows NT servers. JSP technology was designed to support numerous servers, browsers and tools. Apache webserver, which hosts more than 70/% of the websites worldwide, will now fully support the JSP technology under the Jakarta Tomcat project. So, having to hosting a web application on a robust UNIX OS with JSP is not a distant dream. JSP is also being supported on the NT platform using third party components.

Performance

Pages built using JSP technology are typically implemented using a translation phase that is performed once, the first time the page is called. The page is compiled into a Java Servlet class and remains in server memory, so subsequent calls to the page have very fast response time whereas in ASP the page is recompiled for every request.

JSP implementations support a Java programming language-based scripting language, which provides inherent scalability and support for complex operations.

Most JSP pages rely on reusable, cross-platform components (JavaBeans or Enterprise JavaBeansTM components) to perform the more complex processing required of the application, instead of relying heavily on scripting within the page itself. Developers can share and exchange components that perform common operations, or make them available to larger customer communities. The component-based approach speeds overall development and lets organizations leverage their existing expertise and development efforts for optimal results.