Introducing BeanShell: A Java Source Interpreter

If you haven't ever checked out BeanShell before, I would highly suggest you mosey on over to www.beanshell.org and take a look. They describe BeanShell as a small, free, embeddable Java source interpreter with object scripting language features, written in Java.

Essentially, it is a way to run Java source code as an interpreted script. Along with supporting the full Java syntax, it adds a few other nice scripting features such as loosely typed variables. Some of the benefits of such an application include rapid prototyping, rules engines, configuration, testing, embedded systems, and even Java education.

Also, if your application is using Spring, you can even inject BeanShell scripts into your Spring beans. They provide a quick and easy tutorial to get you up and running with BeanShell here.