In our tutorial with JSP we've gotten an idea of what JSP is good for, and how it's used. We've seen that JSP gives us the power of Java on the Web server, which is an incomparable asset.

We have also taken a look at where JSP came from, and how it developed. We've seen that as the Web has evolved, Java has been a part of the picture first with applets, then servlets, and now JSP. Applets were nice, but limited; servlets are very powerful but complex. JSP gives us the best of both worlds: They're both very powerful (they're converted to servlets before they're run) and easy to write.

You've also installed the Tomcat server and gotten it running, and built the development environment (Java, Tomcat, browser, and an editor) you'll be using in the coming days.

We've also developed and run our first JSP. Instead of having to write everything in Java, we were able to simply insert the Java we wanted into an HTML page. That's the whole genius of JSP—you use an HTML backbone and just add the Java you need. As we've also seen, JSP offers a whole set of built-in objects, which means we can get away with even less Java because we don't have to create those objects ourselves.

We also took a look at the JSP syntax in overview here—some of which might not have made a great deal of sense yet. (But don't worry, that's why this is Day 1—it's all coming up in depth in the next days.)

And that's it—we've started our in-depth guided tour of JSP, and built the foundation we'll need in the coming days. Tomorrow, you'll see more details, such as how to work with data and operators in JSP, and you'll start writing some real code.