This is a very common thing to do and is the best way to design web apps (controlling data flow in the servlet and letting a JSP render the view) and is called "forwarding".
So the parameters are passed over HTTP in effect, as query
string variables in the URL?
Can you tell me is the browser itself actually forwarded to the JSP page or is it a private HTTP connection between the servlet and JSP page (i.e the servlet acts as a kind of proxy)?
What makes me nervous about forwarding the actual browser is it's an additional page request and may mean extra delay in loaded the final page. Hence was wondering if it's possible to use a JSP page is a simple template, within a Servlet.