Java is a programming language and a platform that was developed by Sun Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary of Oracle) in 1995. Java is designed to be object-oriented, class-based, concurrent, secure and general-purpose. It allows developers to write code once and run it on any platform that supports Java without the need for recompilation. Java is widely used for various applications such as desktop, web, enterprise, mobile, embedded, smart card, robotics and games. Some of the features of Java are:
- - Simple: Java is easy to learn and use. It has a clear and concise syntax that avoids complex features such as pointers, multiple inheritance and operator overloading.
- - Portable: Java is platform-independent, meaning that it can run on any machine that has a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) installed. The JVM is responsible for executing the Java bytecode, which is the intermediate representation of the Java source code.
- - Object-oriented: Java follows the object-oriented paradigm, which organizes the data and behavior of a program into objects. An object is an instance of a class, which defines the common attributes and methods of a group of objects. Objects can interact with each other through messages.
- - Robust: Java is designed to be reliable and secure. It has features such as automatic memory management, exception handling, type checking and bytecode verification that prevent common errors such as memory leaks, buffer overflows and invalid pointer dereferences.
- - Multithreaded: Java supports concurrency, which means that it can execute multiple threads of execution simultaneously. A thread is a lightweight process that can perform a specific task within a program. Multithreading allows Java to utilize the power of multicore processors and improve the performance and responsiveness of applications.
- - High-performance: Java is fast and efficient. It uses a JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler that converts the bytecode into native machine code at runtime, which improves the execution speed. It also has various libraries and frameworks that provide high-level functionality and optimization for different domains.
