What does the dollar curly brackets ${} mean in JSP?

Question

What does ${} means in JSP? For example,

Answer 1

It is Expression Language. Before EL evolved, the same purpose was achieved by using scriptlets <%=..%>The primary purpose of using this syntax is to avoid scriptlets in jsp. Scriptlets and the enclosed java code is considered bad practise because jsps are not 'supposed' to have java code. At least that is the theory.