JSP/JSTL: Versions and Standards

It baffles me. So many developers who use  infrastructure standards like servlets and JSP, but don't have any idea what versions of these they're coding to. They are blissfully unaware of whether they're targetting HTML4.01, XHTML-1 or HTML-5, CSS 2.1 or CSS 3, Servlet 3, 2.5 or 2.4...

Maybe I'm just funny that way - I think that managing dependencies in a tight, controlled way really matters! Otherwise things quickly spiral out of control, and you end up with that classic Design Pattern, "Big Ball of Mud".

On the other hand, I freely confess that I keep forgetting which pieces belong together. It's such a confusopoly.

So, mainly as a Note To Self, here's a quick lookup:

JSP/Servlet/JDK Versions

Servlets	JSP	JSTL	Java EE	Tomcat	Min. JDK
3.0	2.2	1.2	5	7.x	1.6
2.5	2.1	1.2	5	6.x	1.5
2.4	2.0	1.1	1.4	5.5.x	1.4

The list goes on, but if you still have systems in production running those archaic versions, you're probably in deeper trouble that mere version-confusion anyway!

SABC's website sucks

Email to info@SABC.co.za:

"Why does SABC's website suck so badly when viewed in Firefox?

"Not to mention that it is completely unusable with Javascript disabled, which renders it inaccessible to people using Braille readers or text-based browsers of any kind; this violates the constitutions provisions against discrimination."

BTW: if you leave off the "www." prefix, you get to see exaclty what software they're using to drive their (very b0rked) portal.  Now I'm not suggesting that this might render them susceptible to getting the portal cracked, but anybody who has set up a portal server that incompetently has quite possibly left some default logins/passwords in place.  Maybe?

Not that I'm suggesting anything, mind...