Introduction to Java Programming Language
Java has been one of the most popular programming languages
in the world for a long time now. Java is a high industrial-strength programming language with lots of features and domains of applications. Java
was developed by James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton in June 1991.
Initially, the language was known as Oak and its name was based on an oak tree
that stood outside James Gosling’s office. Later the project was named as green
and finally, it was renamed as Java.Java
was one of the most popular programming languages in use according to GitHub.
Software developers who create applications in Java
programming are benefited by the developing code only once and use it anywhere.
We do not need to Port our applications to every Software and Hardware
platform. Java Technology provides secure, platform-independent and portable
applications.
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Generally, a programming language is known as a
tool to create software applications, but with Java, we can create diverse
applications, applets for World Wide Web, simple to large web applications and
several other advanced distributed applications. The Java programming language
is indeed valuable for distributed network environments like the www. However, Java is well beyond this domain to provide a powerful general-purpose programming language that is suitable for building a variety of
applications that do not depend on the network features. Java's ability to
execute downloaded code on the remote hosts in a secure manner is a critical
requirement for several different organizations.
Ease of programming, simple syntax, and high safety
features enables us to quickly produce working code. Support for features
like multi-threading, automatic garbage collection, and exception handling
enables us to create more than network-based and GUI-based applications, that
attend to the multiple tasks simultaneously in an error-tolerant environment. The
mechanism of exception handling enables the task of dealing with error
conditions. Powerful built-in tools and simple syntax make Java software developer’s
first choice.
Java programming language is designed for maximum
portability with as few implementation dependencies as possible. For example,
an int is 32-bit signed two's complement integer in all
implementations,. Irrespective of the CPU architecture on which the program is
executing. Defining everything possible about the language and its run-time
environment, makes programmers execute anywhere and share code with anyone
who has a Java run-time environment.
The Java programming language shares many features common to
most programming languages in use today. The language should look familiar to C
and C++ programmer because Java is designed with C and C + + construct where
the languages are very much similar. Java is an object-oriented programming
language and supports all of the object-oriented programming features like
classes, objects, inheritance, abstraction, polymorphism, and encapsulation.
Java programs are compiled into byte-codes and they are
executed in Java Virtual Machine. Java provides write once run anywhere(WORA).
Once you have compiled your program into the byte-codes you do not need to
recompile this program will stop you just need Java Run-time Environment to
execute this code.
There were five primary goals in the creation of the Java language:
- To create simple, object-oriented, and familiar programming language.
- To create a robust and secure programming language.
- To create architecture-neutral and portable programming language.
- To create a programming language that executes with high performance.
- To create an interpreted, threaded, and dynamic programming language.
JDK 1.0 was launched on January 23, 1996. The latest version
of JDK is Java SE 13 launched on September
17, 2019.
