Ever since Sun Microsystems (aka "the dot in dot-com") came up with Java, the geeks have been screaming themselves hoarse about the wonders of this technology. Terms like "platform-independent code" and "write once, run anywhere" have been given so much airplay that even novice Java developers are aware of them, and the language is also popular with talk-show pundits and Internet consultants, who tout it as the solution to almost all problems of cross-platform compatibility.

Now, we're big fans of Java - we've used it in the past, and will do so again in the future - but this series of tutorials isn't about Java. It's actually about an offshoot of Java, the innocuously-named Java Server Pages, or JSP, which attempts to offer Web developers a compelling alternative to traditional server-side scripting languages like Perl, PHP and ASP.