Related link: http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/tags/12/syntaxref1211.html#8780

It seems that despite the fact that JSP 1.2 has been out for quite a while; many developers are not aware of how to eliminate the annoying web.xml taglib directives using absolute URIs.
Personally, I’ve always been annoyed when I have
to create entries in the web.xml for the tag libraries and then essentially repeat myself by specifying a matching taglib directive on my JSPs. This always seemed to violate the DRY principle of software development. JSP 1.2 provides a nice solution to this problem by using absolute taglib URIs.

With JSP 1.2, a tag library’s absolute URI is specified in that library’s tag library descriptor (TLD) file. For example, here’s this declaration from the struts-bean.tld file:

<taglib>
  <tlibversion>1.0</tlibversion>
  <jspversion>1.1</jspversion>
  <shortname>bean</shortname>
<uri>http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/tags-bean</uri>

Any JSP page that needs to use this tag library can reference it with the following page-level directive. The tag library does not need to be referenced in the web.xml file!

<%@ taglib
        uri="http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/tags-bean"
        prefix="bean" %>

Using this approach is convenient and easy; however, some developers frown on it. They feel that having the extra level of indirection is beneficial. If the taglib URI changes then you only need to change the web.xml. Yet, since a majority of my web development is with Struts, I almost never touch the web.xml file.

One way to work around this problem is to put all your taglib directives in a single JSP that you include throughout your application.

First, create a JSP file containing taglib directives that use the absolute URIs for the tag libraries you are using. The example below shows a JSP file containing the taglib declarations for the Struts bean, html, and logic tag libraries as well as the JSTL core and formatting tag libraries.

<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/tags-bean" prefix="bean" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/tags-html" prefix="html" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/tags-logic" prefix="logic" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt" prefix="fmt" %>

Then include this file at the top of your JSP pages using the include directive:

<%@ include file="/includes/taglibs.inc.jsp" %>

Since you are using the absolute URIs in the taglib directives, you are not required to enter a corresponding taglib element in the application’s web.xml file!

I have good success with this approach but YMMV — I’d be interested in your experiences.