Why there is a need of pageContext in JSP?

Question

When we can access all the implicit variables in JSP, why do we have pageContext ?

My assumption is the following: if we use EL expressions or JSTL, to acc

Answer 1

To add to @BalusC's excellent answer, the PageContext that you are getting might not be limited to what you see in the specification.

For example, Lucee is a JSP Servlet that adds many features to the interface and abstract classes. By getting a reference to the PageContext you can gain access to a lot of information that is otherwise unavailable.