No, it’s not a dumb reply. As a matter of fact, one of the other developers is also learning more about jsps (the second of our two “web guys”). The “web guy” in question, however, refuses to have anything to do with them.

To be honest I don’t know how much of an advantage jsps offer over portlets because I’ve never done any portles. But neither has he done jsps. The thing is, with such a void of knowledge, how can we hope to make a good design decision if we don’t at least include all viewpoints in a decision?

Roughly put, though jsps are faster, will be quicker to develop (for me, anyway), and offer more flexibility. The benefit of portlets are that more of the team is familiar with them (only 2 people, actually, so it’s not THAT big of an advantage) and apparently security is built in. Truly I’m not totally certain how to implement solid security from within jsps, so that might be a killer benefit. But again, how can we know that without any meaningful discussion?