Core Java Notes

Introduction to Java

Java is a programming language and a platform. Java is a high level, robust,

object-oriented and secure programming language.
Java was developed by Sun Microsystems (which is now the subsidiary of Oracle) in
the year 1995. James Gosling is known as the father of Java. Before Java, its name
was Oak. Since Oak was already a registered company, so James Gosling and his team
changed the name from Oak to Java.
Platform: Any hardware or software environment in which a program runs, is known
as a platform. Since Java has a runtime environment (JRE) and API, it is called a
platform.
History of Java

The history of Java is very interesting. Java was originally designed for interactive
television, but it was too advanced technology for the digital cable television industry at
the time. The history of Java starts with the Green Team. Java team members (also
known as Green Team), initiated this project to develop a language for digital devices
such as set-top boxes, televisions, etc. However, it was best suited for internet
programming. Later, Java technology was incorporated by Netscape.

The principles for creating Java programming were "Simple, Robust, Portable,
Platform-independent, Secured, High Performance, Multithreaded, Architecture
Neutral, Object-Oriented, Interpreted, and Dynamic". Java was developed by James
Gosling, who is known as the father of Java, in 1995. James Gosling and his team
members started the project in the early '90s.

Currently, Java is used in internet programming, mobile devices, games, e-business

solutions, etc. Following are given significant points that describe the history of Java.

Features of Java

The primary objective of Java programming language creation was to make it portable,
simple and secure programming language. Apart from this, there are also some
excellent features which play an important role in the popularity of this language. The
features of Java are also known as Java buzzwords.

A list of the most important features of the Java language is given below.
1. Simple

2. Object-Oriented

3. Portable

4. Platform independent

5. Secured

6. Robust

7. Architecture neutral

8. Interpreted

9. High Performance

10. Multithreaded

11. Distributed
 12. Dynamic

Simple

Java is very easy to learn, and its syntax is simple, clean and easy to understand.
According to Sun Microsystem, Java language is a simple programming language
because:

o Java syntax is based on C++ (so easier for programmers to learn it after C++).
o Java has removed many complicated and rarely-used features, for example,
explicit pointers, operator overloading, etc.
o There is no need to remove unreferenced objects because there is an Automatic
Garbage Collection in Java.

Object-oriented

Java is an object-oriented

programming language. Everything in Java is an object. Object-oriented means we

organize our software as a combination of different types of objects that incorporate
both data and behavior.

Object-oriented programming (OOPs) is a methodology that simplifies software

development and maintenance by providing some rules.

Basic concepts of OOPs are:

1. Object

2. Class

3. Inheritance

4. Polymorphism

5. Abstraction

6. Encapsulation

7. Platform Independent
Java is platform independent because it is different from other languages like C

, C++
, etc. which are compiled into platform specific machines while Java is a write once, run
anywhere language. A platform is the hardware or software environment in which a
program runs.

There are two types of platforms software-based and hardware-based. Java provides a
software-based platform.

The Java platform differs from most other platforms in the sense that it is a software-
based platform that runs on top of other hardware-based platforms. It has two
components:

1. Runtime Environment
2. API(Application Programming Interface)

Java code can be executed on multiple platforms, for example, Windows, Linux, Sun
Solaris, Mac/OS, etc. Java code is compiled by the compiler and converted into
bytecode. This bytecode is a platform-independent code because it can be run on
multiple platforms, i.e., Write Once and Run Anywhere (WORA).

Secured

Java is best known for its security. With Java, we can develop virus-free systems. Java
is secured because:

o No explicit pointer
 o Java Programs run inside a virtual machine sandbox

o Classloader: Classloader in Java is a part of the Java Runtime Environment

(JRE) which is used to load Java classes into the Java Virtual Machine
dynamically. It adds security by separating the package for the classes of the local
file system from those that are imported from network sources.
o Bytecode Verifier: It checks the code fragments for illegal code that can violate
access rights to objects.
o Security Manager: It determines what resources a class can access such as
reading and writing to the local disk.

Java language provides these securities by default. Some security can also be provided
by an application developer explicitly through SSL, JAAS, Cryptography, etc.

Robust

The English mining of Robust is strong. Java is robust because:

 It uses strong memory management.

 There is a lack of pointers that avoids security problems.
 Java provides automatic garbage collection which runs on the Java Virtual Machine
to get rid of objects which are not being used by a Java application anymore.
 There are exception handling and the type checking mechanism in Java. All these
points make Java robust.
Architecture-neutral

Java is architecture neutral because there are no implementation dependent features,

for example, the size of primitive types is fixed.

In C programming, int data type occupies 2 bytes of memory for 32-bit architecture
and 4 bytes of memory for 64-bit architecture. However, it occupies 4 bytes of memory
for both 32 and 64-bit architectures in Java.

Portable

Java is portable because it facilitates you to carry the Java bytecode to any platform. It
doesn't require any implementation.

High-performance

Java is faster than other traditional interpreted programming languages because Java
bytecode is "close" to native code. It is still a little bit slower than a compiled language
(e.g., C++). Java is an interpreted language that is why it is slower than compiled
languages, e.g., C, C++, etc.

Distributed

Java is distributed because it facilitates users to create distributed applications in Java.

RMI and EJB are used for creating distributed applications. This feature of Java makes
us able to access files by calling the methods from any machine on the internet.

Multi-threaded

A thread is like a separate program, executing concurrently. We can write Java

programs that deal with many tasks at once by defining multiple threads. The main
advantage of multi-threading is that it doesn't occupy memory for each thread. It
shares a common memory area. Threads are important for multi-media, Web
applications, etc.

Dynamic

Java is a dynamic language. It supports the dynamic loading of classes. It means classes
are loaded on demand. It also supports functions from its native languages, i.e., C and
C++.