Introduction to Java

What is 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.

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OOPs Concepts in Java

Java Example
Let's have a quick look at Java programming example. A detailed description of Hello Java
example is available in next page.

Simple.java

1. class Simple{  
2.     public static void main(String args[]){  
3.      System.out.println("Hello Java");  
4.     }  
5. }  
Test it Now

Application
According to Sun, 3 billion devices run Java. There are many devices where Java is currently
used. Some of them are as follows:

1. Desktop Applications such as acrobat reader, media player, antivirus, etc.

2. Web Applications such as irctc.co.in, javatpoint.com, etc.
3. Enterprise Applications such as banking applications.
4. Mobile
5. Embedded System
 6. Smart Card
7. Robotics
8. Games, etc.

Types of Java Applications

There are mainly 4 types of applications that can be created using Java programming:

1) Standalone Application

Standalone applications are also known as desktop applications or window-based applications.

These are traditional software that we need to install on every machine. Examples of standalone
application are Media player, antivirus, etc. AWT and Swing are used in Java for creating
standalone applications.

2) Web Application

An application that runs on the server side and creates a dynamic page is called a web
application. Currently, Servlet, JSP, Struts, Spring, Hibernate, JSF, etc. technologies are used for
creating web applications in Java.

3) Enterprise Application

An application that is distributed in nature, such as banking applications, etc. is called an

enterprise application. It has advantages like high-level security, load balancing, and clustering.
In Java, EJB is used for creating enterprise applications.

4) Mobile Application

An application which is created for mobile devices is called a mobile application. Currently,
Android and Java ME are used for creating mobile applications.

Java Platforms / Editions

There are 4 platforms or editions of Java:

1) Java SE (Java Standard Edition)

It is a Java programming platform. It includes Java programming APIs such as java.lang, java.io,
java.net, java.util, java.sql, java.math etc. It includes core topics like OOPs, String, Regex,
Exception, Inner classes, Multithreading, I/O Stream, Networking, AWT, Swing, Reflection,
Collection, etc.

2) Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition)

It is an enterprise platform that is mainly used to develop web and enterprise applications. It is
built on top of the Java SE platform. It includes topics like Servlet, JSP, Web Services,
EJB, JPA, etc.
3) Java ME (Java Micro Edition)

It is a micro platform that is dedicated to mobile applications.

4) JavaFX

It is used to develop rich internet applications. It uses a lightweight user interface API.

History of Java
1. History of Java
2. Java Version History

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.

1) James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton initiated the Java language

project in June 1991. The small team of sun engineers called Green Team.
2) Initially it was designed for small, embedded systems in electronic appliances like set-
top boxes.

3) Firstly, it was called "Greentalk" by James Gosling, and the file extension was .gt.

4) After that, it was called Oak and was developed as a part of the Green project.

Why Java was named as "Oak"?

5) Why Oak? Oak is a symbol of strength and chosen as a national tree of many

countries like the U.S.A., France, Germany, Romania, etc.

6) In 1995, Oak was renamed as "Java" because it was already a trademark by Oak

Technologies.

Why Java Programming named "Java"?

7) Why had they chose the name Java for Java language? The team gathered to choose
a new name. The suggested words were "dynamic", "revolutionary", "Silk", "jolt", "DNA",
etc. They wanted something that reflected the essence of the technology: revolutionary,
dynamic, lively, cool, unique, and easy to spell, and fun to say.

According to James Gosling, "Java was one of the top choices along with Silk". Since
Java was so unique, most of the team members preferred Java than other names.

8) Java is an island in Indonesia where the first coffee was produced (called Java coffee).
It is a kind of espresso bean. Java name was chosen by James Gosling while having a
cup of coffee nearby his office.

9) Notice that Java is just a name, not an acronym.

10) Initially developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary

of Oracle Corporation) and released in 1995.

11) In 1995, Time magazine called Java one of the Ten Best Products of 1995.
12) JDK 1.0 was released on January 23, 1996. After the first release of Java, there have
been many additional features added to the language. Now Java is being used in
Windows applications, Web applications, enterprise applications, mobile applications,
cards, etc. Each new version adds new features in Java.

Java Version History

Many java versions have been released till now. The current stable release of Java is Java
SE 10.

1. JDK Alpha and Beta (1995)

2. JDK 1.0 (23rd Jan 1996)
3. JDK 1.1 (19th Feb 1997)
4. J2SE 1.2 (8th Dec 1998)
5. J2SE 1.3 (8th May 2000)
6. J2SE 1.4 (6th Feb 2002)
7. J2SE 5.0 (30th Sep 2004)
8. Java SE 6 (11th Dec 2006)
9. Java SE 7 (28th July 2011)
10. Java SE 8 (18th Mar 2014)
11. Java SE 9 (21st Sep 2017)
12. Java SE 10 (20th Mar 2018)
13. Java SE 11 (September 2018)
14. Java SE 12 (March 2019)
15. Java SE 13 (September 2019)
16. Java SE 14 (Mar 2020)
17. Java SE 15 (September 2020)
18. Java SE 16 (Mar 2021)
19. Java SE 17 (September 2021)
20. Java SE 18 (to be released by March 2022)

Since Java SE 8 release, the Oracle corporation follows a pattern in which every even
version is release in March month and an odd version released in September month.
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.
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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

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:

o It uses strong memory management.

o There is a lack of pointers that avoids security problems.
o 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.
o 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++.

Java supports dynamic compilation and automatic memory management (garbage

collection).