Re: Servlet caching strategies?

So I agree that the author I linked to, Jason Hunter, seems a little
goofy in this regard. I've never heard of pregenerating websites being a
best practice, which is why I asked here about it. The idea of using
separate (and pre-written, and pre-debugged) cache software to do the
caching seems much, much better.

However, Mr Hunter raises some good points. One I think is that it's
impossible for a cache to function if it can't determine the age of a
page (or other resource). And he admonishes the coder to implement
getLastModified() on the servlet, which will automatically add date
information to the page (or other generated content). This seems
fundamental in enabling a cache to work, because the spec for caching
seems to imply that without some sort of cache control in the HTTP
header, data cannot be cached.

So I'm I correct in assuming that the cache software needs some sort of
control? Either Last Modified, ETag, or some sort of explicit cache
control. That's how I read the spec.