Jakarta Struts is incredibly useful in helping you create excellent Web applications. When you use Jakarta Struts, your applications should work more effectively and have fewer bugs. Just as important (because your time is important), Struts should save you hours and hours of programming and debugging.
As we explain more fully later in this chapter, Struts is a framework that structures all the components of a Java-based Web application into a unified whole. These components of a Web application are:
- Java Servlets: Programs written in Java that reside on a Web server and respond to user requests
- JavaServer Pages: A technology for generating Web pages with both static and dynamic content
- JavaBeans: Components that follow specific rules, such as naming conventions
- Business logic: The code that implements the functionality or rules of your specific application.
We provide an overview of the first three items in this chapter. (The business
logic varies with each application.)
Jakarta Struts uses a specific paradigm, or design pattern, to structure your application. You simply fill in the pieces of the structure. The design pattern is called Model-View-Controller (MVC). The MVC design pattern helps you organize the various pieces of the application puzzle for maximum efficiency and flexibility.
