JSP: Innocence Lost With Increased Complexity?

I am an avid JSP / Servlets user (and fan) since its introduction. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to quickly prototype and deliver a robust application within few days (even a single day) for a client using JSP and servlets. However recently (or not so recently) I have been observing with growing concern that JSP is growing increasingly complex for prototyping and developing simple applications with JSTL, Java Server Faces, EL and more such technologies. I think JSP is turning into a more complex system in favor of complex enterprise application development while forgetting the needs of prototyping and rapid application development. The initial configuration and setup you need to do have become daunting, even fearsome, for any newbies.

In contrast PHP remains a simple language for newbies and so does JSP 1.1 & Servlets 2.2 specification based Tomcat 3.3. I think for prototyping and rapid application development JSP 1.1 should be the targeted platform instead of Tomcat 6 or even 5, which in my humble opinion have become increasingly bloated trying to satisfy everyone and their cousins.

I belong to that category of developers who achieve greatest productivity with a simple code editors like JEdit or JExt instead of bloated IDE’s like Eclipse, NetBeans or Java Studio Creator and their ilk. I want my code to remain clean and within my full understanding, simpler the better. Technolgies like Java Server faces forces me to use IDE’s like Java Studio Creator which makes me unhappy.

I propose in favor of simplified JSP in the core specification so it can deployed by anyone with their 3.95$ web hosting or less. The additional modules should be available as extras for those who can truly leverage their capabilities and not bundled in the default setup. Let JSP & Servlet be simple and joyous once again for rapid application development and prototyping while continuing to serve the needs of heavy duty enterprise development.

BTW: One of the often touted advantages of MVC framework is the ability to easily switch view component. How many application developers out there in reality have used that capability and used it successfully? I know I haven’t.