What is Java

Java

Today Java is a commonly used foundation for developing and delivering content on the Web. According to Oracle, there are more than 9 million Java developers worldwide and more than 3 billion mobile phones run Java. Java initially name oak was developed by the team headed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, USA in 1991.

The first and foremost reason behind the development of Java was the need for a platform – independent and portable software to be embedded in the consumers electronic devices like remote controls, microwave ovens etc.

Second reason behind the development of Java was the growth of Java is the Internet and the world wide web(WWW) as these media need portable and platform independent programs.

Gosling & the other team members developed web applets using the new language that could run on all types of computers. During 1993, the first web browser, ‘Hot Java’ was developed to locate and run applet programs.

This development made Java language popular for Internet. By 1196, Java become the general purpose, object oriented programming language which was used for Internet programming .

Soon, Java become Popular and many web browser like Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator incorporated the ability to run Java applets.

Java is a general-purpose computer programming language that is concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, and specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible.

It is intended to let application developers “write once, run anywhere” (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation.

Java applications are typically compiled to byte-code that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture. As of 2016, Java is one of the most popular programming languages in use, particularly for client-server web applications, with a reported 9 million developers. Java was originally the language derives much of its syntax from C and C++, but it has fewer low-level facilities than either of them.

The original and reference implementation Java compilers, virtual machines, and class libraries were originally released by Sun under proprietary licenses.

FEATURES OF JAVA

1. Simple :- All the syntax of Java was written in c++. There is no preprocessor & much larger library. Confusing feature like pointer ,operator overloading, global variables, structure are eliminated from Java.

2. Robust:- Java is graceful in the presence of software or hardware errors. Java has very good exception handlers.

3. Object –Oriented:- All the functions are defined inside the classes. We cannot write any independent functions.

4. Network savvy:- Java designed with Internet in mind. Java standard library provides URL classes.

5. Platform Independent:- It is platform independent programming language . Java compiles to byte code . This is interpreted.

6. Architectural Neutral:- Java programs can run on Macintosh, Unix machines etc.

7. Portable:- Java hides architecture specific concept. Byte –codes are same regardless of machine on which it is run.

8. High performance:- Bytes code are interpreted making it slow. But we have just in time compiler(JIT). These compile the byte codes into target machine . This improves the performance.

9. Multi threaded:- Java programs are capable for easy to set up multiple threads of execution and coordinate parallel processing.

10. Dynamic:-Because Java programs move through the Internet they can exhibit dynamic behavior.