While working on an ASP.NET project, I really liked the concept of a class for each page or webform, where I could write all the method and actions I want, and more importantly, the Page Load method.
Everyone says that we should avoid using scriplets, either in ASP or JSP.
And I suppose that the Page Load existed for us so that we don’t use scriplets anymore.
Because I heard and read many times that we can’t know when these scriplets will run, but in the Page Load method, we know exactly how the codes will run and how the page will be rendered.
But in JSP, as far as I know, we don’t have this type of server-side class for each page.
Instead we have something called servelts, which everyone encourages to use.
But technically servlets are independent from the normal JSP pages.
So still, I’m using scriplets in my JSP pages, even though I’m trying to make them less as much as I could, but I still use some scriplets to check the Session and some URL parameters.
Isn’t there a similar idea or approach to the Page Load (ASP) in JSP?
BalusC was right in saying you are comparing apples to oranges. JSF was created in response to asp.net. (source @ 47 minutes) It has grown independently and you might do well to look into all the different frameworks and paradigms out there. While JSF will work similar to asp.net there are plenty of alternatives worth exploring. In .NET you might want to look into MVC4. In Java there is Tapestry, Spring MVC, Seams, etc.
I would start with wiki comparison and go from there. At your stage in the game I would pick one and try to get familiar with it, than try 2 more to do that same thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks#Java_2