Strange, isn’t it? But it’s quite a creative and unusual case :o)

Ok, let me explain what’s going on:

First I want to note that "<jsp:useBean id="accountManager" type="com.acme.atm.ejb.AccountManager"
scope="session"/>" doesn’t mean “lookup for accountManager in scope session and if not found then instantiate one” but means “lookup for accountManager in scope session”. This is because “type” is used not “class”. So if you lookup something that doesn’t exist in session an InstantiationException will be thrown.

So what comes to your mind? “This accountManager thing should be create()-ed somewhere and put into the session”. Right? Well, a bit different but the same result. When you want to use atm, you first should login to it; there in login.jsp also a useBean as above exists. Because no accountManager exists yet, an InstantiationException is thrown. If you look at web.xml you see that when this exception occurs in a page, request is forwarded to errors/errorAccountManager.jsp. So the first time in login page you’re actually redirected to this error page and if you look at it, it’s there that the accountManager is create()-ed and put into session! Then you’re forwarded to index.jsp page, and because you’re not logged in you’re forwarded to login.jsp but this time an accountManager exists in session!

I hope it’s now clear for you how accoutnManager is created. Regarding ejb vs javabean question, ejb is a javabean, all java classes are beans, just put a getBlabla() in your class and the blabla attribute is accessible from outside world as an attribute of a javabean.