[Newbie] JSP precompilation & dumps

Question

Hey there,
I've just gotten started on my first JSP project. I've done some extensive googling, but can't work out the following two issues.
1) One of my pages, takes around 10-15 seconds to load in the browser. I'm assuming thats because tomcat is putting it through some compilation process (does a JSP page get dynamically converted to a servlet at runtime?) This is not just on the first access, but any subsequent request. There is only a few db queries and some XML output using XJTL.
In $tomcat\conf\web.xml I've set
<init-param>
<param-name>development</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>checkInterval</param-name>
<param-value>60</param-value>
</init-param>
under the JSP servlet element, but it seems to make no difference.
2) I' m an experienced ColdFusion developer, so alot of the tag based concepts are the same, but I'm finding the datatypes are a lot more focused, where the CF datatypes are very generic and no real casting is required. In CF there is a "CFDUMP" tag which you can throw any variable at and it will recurisvely write it out, no matter how deep the array or structure. Is there anything similar for JSP?
Any help is appreciated.
Cheers,
Jon

Answer 1

1) >This is not just on the first access, but any subsequent request.
The jsp transforms to a servlet on first request. The servlet is compiled and executed and its this output that's streamed to the browser. The keyword is 'first request' which in turn means the first access may be a bit slow (& which can be overcome by precompilation), but if subsequent access to the resource still takes a long time, you have other problems.
The check interval in tomcat's web.xml is to address a wholly different issue. Its the interval that the container checks for newer versions of the jsp (in a development environment) and will not solve your problem.
2) Hmmm, you want to output readable data when you print out a variable ? For user defined datatypes, you could override the toString() method in the class.
cheers,
ram.