Precompile the JSPs

All JSPs should be compiled. Using normal JSPs in development mode is normal - but I couldn't find any good reason why an application would not compile all JSPs.



Besides speed ( which is important ! ), you would also know about syntax errors

or missing dependencies. Most of the "jsp is slow" stuff is based on the first experience with a JSP page - where you have to wait for the HelloWorld.jsp to compile. A lot of "jsp is hard" is based on the same experience - when the compiler is not found.



It would be nice if a future version of the JSP spec would require ( or strongly recommend that ) as well as include a way to use the jsp-file tag togheter with servlet-class. I would like to be able to keep the jsp-file declaration next to the precompiled class name ( now only one can be specified - AFAIK ).



Update: I've got the admin/ precompiled - now you get a decent experience when using it. In process we found few bugs in jspc - I fixed it, but Hans had a better one.



As a bonus for using JSPC, the jsps will be visible in the JMX console - you'll

know the number of requets, average and max times and all the fun stuff. And you bypass the JspServlet - another (small according to Remy ) improvment. I did a small attempt to JMX-enable regular servlets - but it is too complicated and its

really not worth it - I'm more convinced than ever that JspServlet is the wrong way

to support Jsps.



JspInterceptor has its own problems - but now there is a better/cleaner way to abstract the JSP engine - just use JMX. The JSP engine should be just a JMX mbean, with a simple operation "compile( contextPath, jsp )". This can be crafted

on top of the existing JspC - and will insure consistent behavior. Regular JMX attributes will remove the confusion in jasper configuration, and it may even provide nice statistics ( compile time, number of errors, etc).



Probably I should split this entry in two ( or 3 ).