Article:		Taglibs: Designing Web APIs for the Non-Programmer
Subject:		Taglibs are good, but not always the only answer
Date:		2003-11-20 08:00:00
From:		samnewman
I don't know, you write two little articles on RSS tags and everyones at it :-) I think the thrust of the article being that tags simplify the JSP pages is fine, although in my experience you can only consider a taglib sutible for a non-programmer if it is very trivial or another programmer has already done all the work for you at the back end. JSP tags need a servlet container, and something to plug into - not something a non-programming web designer can do. That said keeping your Java code out of your JSP is always a good thing (as is keeping your layout out of the JSP - CSS for all!). Also, don't be afraid to try out client-side only devices, such as CSS menus, the excellent JS Calendar widget (http://dynarch.com/mishoo/calendar.epl) or even DHTML sortable tables - some more examples of existing client and serverside components can be found at my blog entry here:http://www.magpiebrain.com/archives/000120.html. If well made, DHTML components can be just as easy to insert into webpages as a JSP tag. Sam Newman http://www.magpiebrain.com/