Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to bring relative newcomers up to speed in writing, compiling, and packaging servlets and JSPs. If you have never developed a servlet or JSP before, or just need to brush up on the technology to jumpstart your development, then the upcoming recipes provide simple programming examples and an overview of the components that you require on the user classpath to compile servlets.

Recipe 1.1 and Recipe 1.2 provide a brief introduction to servlets and JSPs, respectively. A comprehensive description of a servlet or JSP's role in the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is beyond the scope of these recipes. However, information that relates directly to J2EE technology, such as databases and JDBC; using servlets with the Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI); and using servlets with JavaMail (or email) is distributed throughout the book (and index!).

The "See Also" sections concluding each recipe provide pointers to closely related chapters, an online tutorial managed by Sun Microsystems, and other O'Reilly books that cover these topics in depth.