This second edition book describes itself as a completely updated and comprehensive guide to Version 1.2 of the JSP specification with detailed coverage of the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL) Version 1.0. It claims to be targeted specifically at 'Page Authors' and 'Java Programmers' and anyone who is interested in using JSP technology to develop web applications.

As an experienced Java programmer I am certainly interested in learning about and using JSP technology, but I struggled to get to grips with it from looking at this book. I do not doubt for a moment the credentials and technical expertise of the author but it was a quite long and difficult book to read. It is a very technical book, which I feel needs to be read cover to cover to fully comprehend the subject. It does not attempt to be a comprehensive reference manual or cookbook that can be dipped into.

Primarily the examples are overly complicated at the beginning and rely too heavily on the author's own custom tag library to be easily understood. I don't think that the book provides an easy to understand introduction for newcomers to simple straightforward JSP.

The book does have an associated web site containing the example source code, which I consider essential for anyone wishing to actively work through the book.